


The Annotated Adventures of the Lady Pirate Nyota Uhura and her Captain, James Kirk

by VivaRocksteady



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Community: trekreversebang, East Africa, F/M, Gen, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Revenge, Slavery, Steampunk, Zanzibar - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-04
Updated: 2012-08-04
Packaged: 2017-11-11 11:34:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 31,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/478113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VivaRocksteady/pseuds/VivaRocksteady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the Indian Ocean in the 1790s, an escaped slave girl joins up with a ragtag team of pirates to avenge her sister's death at the hands of the notorious star-man, Nero.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nyota Uhura, and, The Governor of Zanzibar

**One: Nyota Uhura**  


In the bustling market in Stonetown, on the island of Zanzibar, a young girl stood in the slave pit and stared up at the hot blue sky. She was skinny and bruised, and while she was naked and chained and scarred like the others, she was unbent and her face was full of determination. 

She had been marching for three months from her quiet, sleepy home to arrive on this island, where she was surrounded by the sounds of a thousand different languages being shouted all around her, stone buildings that stretched and wobbled up to the sky, the cries of skinny cows and donkeys tied together by rope and pushed through the crowded alleys, and the smell of spices and the ocean and the other captives. 

Her name was Nyota, which meant star, she was roughly nineteen years old, and she had never kissed a man. 

\--

Nyota was being prodded awake. Gentle waves lapped at her body. It was still dark, so she must not have been unconscious for very long. 

"Hey, the tide's coming in," a strange, lyrical voice said to her in Kiswahili. Nyota turned her head sluggishly, her exhausted body yearning for sleep and enjoying the feel of the wet sand and the gentle waves. She blinked up at the figure before her, wrapped head to toe in bright _kangas_. "Come on, get up. You look like you need something to eat." 

The strange girl bent and pulled Nyota up by her arms. She retrieved Nyota's stolen _kanga_ from the sand, and shook it off in the water. "I guess this will have to do," she said, pulling it around Nyota's torso. 

"Who... who are you..." Nyota managed to speak, her head muddy and slow. 

"Oh, my name's Gaila! I was just coming home from the night market and I saw you lying there. Couldn't very well leave you, could I?" Gaila's voice was bright and clear and Nyota blinked in confusion, exhausted, before she remembered that Penda was dead. 

All her memories hit her at once then, and Nyota took a paranoid step back, clutching the shackle that remained on her left wrist to hide it from sight. "Leave me alone," she said. 

"Well, okay," Gaila said, sadly. "If you want me too. But the tide's coming in and the beach hits the wall up there," she nodded up the beach, the route Nyota had planned to take before she collapsed. The city wall jutted out on the beach, the tide already reaching a foot up the wall. "It's pretty rocky there, you won't be able to cross. You also look like you could use a meal and a nice place to sleep. If you want to. I won't tell anyone." Gaila's eyes drifted down to the shackle on Nyota's wrist. "I promise." 

Nyota looked at this girl, trying to ignore the tightness in her stomach and make a decision. Gaila was covered completely in bright blue and purple _kangas_ , the skirts falling to her ankles, and her hair wrapped up, her face covered. Two bright blue eyes looked out at Nyota, who wasn't sure if she could trust them. 

In the end, her hunger and exhaustion won out, and she nodded wearily. She tucked her left wrist under her _kanga_ and let Gaila prop her up as they walked home. 

It was dark, the only light coming from torches and fires inside the houses as they picked their way through the twisting, tiny alleys of Stonetown. Gaila spoke a bit, of nothing much, and occasionally stopped to making cooing and kissing noises at a _paka –_ a cat - sitting up on a wall or peering out at them from the shadows. 

Nyota let her eyes drift almost closed once or twice, following Gaila blindly. The streets were quiet, until they got to the sandy streets of Michenzani, where the buildings were higher and fewer between. Nyota tensed up as they passed groups of men on the corners, standing around big vats of coffee brewing over charcoal pits, but the men were friendly and called out to Gaila in greeting. 

"We're almost there," Gaila said, as they got to the foot of a high, stone building. She opened a small wrought iron gate, and helped Nyota painstakingly climb three flights of stairs. 

Nyota didn't register much of Gaila's tiny apartment just then - the girl led her to a large, wide bed, something Nyota had never slept in before, and it was so luxuriously soft that Nyota fell asleep immediately. 

\-- 

Nyota ended up living with Gaila for three months before she could revisit her revenge plan. She needed that time to rest and recover, and she knew Penda would tut at her if she didn't let herself do that. 

And there was so much to learn - finding out who, exactly, this star-man Nero was, and where to find him. And before that, just to get by on Zanzibar and find the information she needed - her Kiswhaili needed to be polished, and the more tongues she could master the better. But he was a star-man, and she despaired of ever learning his true language, so she could hear him beg for mercy. 

Gaila was a different type of star-person than Nero, which Nyota had discovered the first morning she woke up in her apartment. Gaila was green-fleshed, and grew up on a sterile, controlled aether-ship far from Earth.

Gaila ran a stall at the night market in Forodhani, in the gardens near the House of Wonders, selling fish and fruit and vegetables prepared in the traditions of her home world. It was difficult to fake with Earth ingredients, she said, and the fish wasn't _exactly_ right, but Zanzibar spices were so rich and tasty that it turned out great, and it was popular. Popular enough to make a good, honest living. Nobody knew Gaila's true ethnicity, well, hardly anybody, as she always kept herself completely covered outside the apartment. 

"I knew I could trust you though," she said one night as they shared passionfruit and sat on the tiny terrace of Gaila's apartment, overlooking a small patch of grass where a young boy tied his goats every morning. "We're kindred spirits." 

Gaila's apartment was small; one room, filled mostly by a wide, wooden Zanzibari bed. She had a mirror propped against one wall, dirty and cracked. A small window by the bed kept the room mostly dark and cool. The room opened onto a tiny terrace on the other end, with a grate keeping it private, where Gaila hung her clothes to dry. There was a drain on the floor of the terrace, and a collection of buckets. They would get water from a well at the end of the street. The terrace was also where Gaila cooked her breakfasts, using a tiny charcoal stove. 

Nyota spent the first week alternately eating very slowly and sleeping in that wide, deliciously soft bed. At night Gaila would curl up next to her, as the bed could easily fit five people, and it wasn't long before Nyota quietly rested her bare arm against Gaila's, longing for the close touch of a sister. Gaila would smile at her sadly in the dark, and say nothing. 

After a week, Nyota started venturing out into the world and getting her bearings. Her hair, the first time she tried to comb it, was matted and tangled and filthy. She washed it out on the terrace using a tiny amount of Gaila's washing water and one of Gaila's combs. It was almost to her shoulders now, and she had never had her hair so long. Penda would have liked it, to run her hands through it and tease her. 

She got a set of _kangas_ in deep red and black, swirling patterns that were only visible very close up. She took one rectangular piece of the pretty red black fabric, and pulled it around her hips, tucking it into a long skirt. She took the other piece and twisted it around her neck and chest, covering her breasts. Nyota pulled her long, straight hair into a ponytail and looked at herself in the small, smudged mirror Gaila kept in the room - after just a week of sleep and good food, she was a far cry from the half-starved girl escaping from slavers. 

Stonetown during the day was a baking hot melting pot of people. It was noisy and fragrant and vibrant. Nyota went out with Gaila at first, but soon got used to going out on her own, trying out all the new words and new tastes, learning as much as she could. 

While a star-girl like Gaila would stick out if uncovered, a woman of Nyota's colour blended in so well it was easy to hide from the slavers, especially after filling out and cleaning up. 

There were _so many_ men and women in Stonetown - from the Muslim Arab women selling elaborate scarves, some covered head to toe in all black, some only hiding their hair with bright _kangas_ or flimsy see-through veils, to Indian women in bright saris and beautiful henna tattoos selling jewelry and watches; children of all types running about barefoot and shrieking; Arab men with moustaches and _keffiyehs_ riding in combustion engine cars, elderly Persian men wearing _kofias_ drinking coffee and playing _bao_ on little wooden boards, shirtless black boys pulling in fishing boats in the afternoons and fixing up brickwork on countless walls and buildings; flushed, white foreign men in stuffy high collars and fancy hats; people of all colours pouring into (and out of) the cathedrals and mosques and Hindu temples. 

It seemed, to Nyota, impossible to say exactly who a _Zanzibari_ person was. 

The white foreign soldiers, and many of the Sultan's local turbaned guard, carried the same shiny little weapon that Nero's men did - called _phasers_ , Nyota knew now, or disruptors, depending on who you were asking. 

"You don't want to get in the way of one of those things," Gaila had said. "It's not very pleasurable." 

Amidst it all were an infinite amount of skinny little _pakas_ running about, meowing at people, sleeping on the sides of roads, in the middle of roads, on tops of walls, getting underfoot and begging for scraps, adding to the general bright noise that was Stonetown. 

The noise was mostly _language_ , and when she made herself too full of anger about Nero, Nyota would calm down and listen to all the beautiful, lyrical words around her, talking to anybody who would humour her, learning just how wide and wonderful her world was. Words in Kiswahili, English, Arabic, Hindi, Portuguese, German... 

But no star-tongues. 

"What you need," Gaila said one day when she and Nyota were packing up their things for the stall that night. "Is a star-man." 

"Pfft," Nyota scowled. "I don't need _any_ man's help, _especially_ not a star-man." She dropped a big jackfruit into her woven bag particularly hard. "It's men that got us into this to begin with." 

"I suppose," Gaila said, wrapping a _kanga_ around her hair and face, and securing it with a hair pin. "But men are the do-ers, Nyota, they're the ones who make the world go round and can get things done." 

Nyota raised an eyebrow and said nothing, waiting by the door for Gaila to put her sandals on. They walked through the alleys as the sun set, towards Forodhani Garden and the night market. It had been three months since she awoke in Gaila's bed, and besides making a living helping Gaila at the stall and learning a passable amount of most of the languages spoken here, she wasn't any closer to finding Nero. 

She looked sidelong at Gaila as they walked. Neither girl had told the other much about their histories, besides the basics. But Gaila must have gotten off those aether-ships and down to Earth somehow, and Nyota was sure a _man_ had nothing to do with it. 

It was busy that night, the garden illuminated by lantern light as dozens of people ran their stalls, selling mostly food - street pizza, fresh fish, fruit and sweets, but also jewelry and instruments and fine clothes. Gaila set up her stall near the far wall of the Garden. Nyota sat on a bench by the wall, feeding fish to the small group of _pakas_ that had gathered by her feet. It was one of the small pleasures she indulged in here. 

“Jimmy!” Gaila shrieked suddenly, setting her pan down on the wooden table and darting out from behind the stall. Nyota looked up to see her hugging a young man tightly. He was foreign - white-skinned and sunburned, with hair bleached light yellow from the sun. Nyota stood, suspiciously, and the young man caught her eye over Gaila's head. 

"Who's your friend, Gaila?" he asked in rapid English, in an accent Nyota hadn't heard before. Gaila, obviously grinning underneath her headwrap, grasped his hand and squeezed. 

"This is..." Gaila gestured at Nyota, and then trailed off, a little hesitant. 

"Uhura," Nyota said, giving the name she had taken to distinguish herself from the naked, skinny, desperate girl that had arrived on this island. 

"Uhura!" Jimmy said, friendly, in his clumsy accent. Nyota wanted to frown at the way he said the word, but he was so sincere she found she couldn't. "Jim Kirk." He held out his hand for her to shake. She looked at it, suspiciously. 

Gaila filled the resulting awkward silence with laughter. "She's not going to fall for your tricks, Jimmy," she said, resting her head on his shoulder. 

"Well that's okay," Jimmy said. "You're probably right anyway, Uhura, you shouldn't trust a guy like me." 

Gaila laughed again, but Nyota was mostly puzzled as to why anybody would say that. 

"How long are you working tonight?" Jimmy asked Gaila. "You girls should come visit me, we're beached not far from here. I'm lonely." 

"No," Nyota said, firmly. 

"Oh come on N, I've known Jimmy forever, he's _fine_." 

"No, Gaila." 

Jimmy shrugged. "That's okay, I understand." He picked a piece of pineapple off their stand and took a bite. "I'll see you round, Gaila. It was nice to meet you, Uhura," he inclined slightly, bowing to her with a slight flourish. Nyota raised an eyebrow. "And I would _love_ to see you again." 

Gaila wouldn't shut up about Jimmy the entire way back to the apartment that night. 

"Where did you even meet him?" Nyota asked as she combed her hair out by candlelight on the tiny terrace. 

"Oh, just at the night market," Gaila said. "He showed up one day and got some food from me. The other fish stalls made him sick, poor thing." 

"Where's he from?" It was one of those instances where Nyota didn't want to talk about this person at all, but couldn't help herself. She hated it. 

"America," Gaila sucked out the innards of one half of a passionfruit, handing the other half to Nyota. "Wherever that is. Oh, Nyota, it's so _romantic_. He fell in love with the wrong girl, and he had to run away from home." 

"Yeah, whatever," Nyota scoffed. She emptied her passionfruit piece and tossed the hide over the side of the terrace. 

"He stole a boat," Gaila went on, as she fluffed up the pillows on their wide bed. "He and his friend, Bones. You'll like Bones. We should see them tomorrow." 

"He _stole_ a boat?" 

"Mmm hmm," Gaila smiled up at her as Nyota settled into bed beside her. "He's a _very_ bad boy, that Jim Kirk." She closed her eyes, but Nyota stayed awake, scheming.

  
**Two: The Governor of Zanzibar, or, Spock's Unpleasant Business**   
  


The House of Wonders was a white palace that rose up over the other, grey buildings of Stonetown. It overlooked the Strait of Zanzibar, and the lavish Forodhani Gardens, where the Governer allowed the public to congregate. 

As far as palaces went, Commander Spock had seen human ones far more lavish, but this still had all the trappings of wealth and "glamour", a concept Spock was mystified by. It wasn't like a temple, or any place of study or meditation. But it was still gigantic and decadent, with cavernous high ceilings and winding staircases. 

There were several layers of housing, like a cocoon, going further and further inside, the house courted around itself, and a wide courtyard in the middle. It was cool in the innermost parts of the house, where Spock and Mister Scott were led by servants up to the Governor's office. Spock found it pleasant, but it was just as unbearable as outside for Mister Scott, who huffed and sweated in his thick navy uniform, clutching his hat and mopping at his brow. 

"I dinnae how you can handle it, Commander," Mister Scott sighed, as he creaked back in the wicker chair. “It's hotter than Satan's arsehole, and you look as if you just stepped into a brisk spring morn." 

"I'm familiar with this type of weather, Mister Scott," Commander Spock replied. “I find it quite refreshing.” They were sitting in a large office at the top of the House of Wonders, on two wicker chairs that faced a big lacquered wooden desk. The room was dark, to keep it cool, and hung throughout were bright, thin curtains. 

A large terrace opened up behind Spock and Scott. Curtains mostly hid it, but they were drawn slightly in the middle to let in the light - a piercing shaft of hot white light into the dark room, revealing swaying palm trees, and the glint of the ocean, dhows bobbing in the distance. Spock sat straight up in his seat, looking out at the ocean, still wearing his hat, his blue military jacket crisp and perfect. 

Commander Spock was one of the very few star-man to visit Earth in an official capacity. His father, Sarek, was the first Vulcan ambassador to Earth, when King George the II of England commissioned a powerful telescope which was able to read the mathematical messages laid out on Earth's moon by the then-fledgling Federation. A gigantic kaleidoscope, for lack of a better word (indeed, that is what the public called it - the Kaleidoscope), was built to relay a message back, and Sarek was among the first explorers to make contact with this new species. He eventually married the Lady Amanda, a minor British noble, and Spock became the first child of an interplanetary union with humans. 

The issue of Earth joining the Federation had been in the forefront of Spock's life since his birth. Human society was so diverse, and fractured, and hopelessly illogical - and yet several segments of it desired deeply to join the Federation. One of the main requirements for doing so, however, was complete abolition of the despicable act of slavery in all its forms. While some governments and Empires were dedicated to doing so – it was still technically legal in England though it was rapidly becoming unpopular - it was so widespread that it seemed, at times, pointless to even try. 

Nonetheless, Sarek was still committed to one day introducing Earth into the Federation, and at his behest Spock agreed to work on one of the millions of little problem spots that Earth was having. Working with the British government, he was given command of a ship - the _HMS Enterprise_ \- and told to do what he could about the slave trade in the Indian Ocean, particularly the trading hub on the island of Zanzibar. 

Mister Scott gulped down a cup of cooling chai tea, and once again wiped sweat off his face. "He better not keep us long," he said. "I'm itchin' to get back to the _Enterprise_ , it's not right leaving a pretty lady like that in a harbour of thieves like this place." He clunked his empty tea cup down on the tray left for them on the table. "Godforsaken little rock," he grumbled. 

Commander Spock knew he should say something for the sake of propriety, but he liked Mister Scott's honesty. Unlike many humans that Spock had met since coming to work with the British government, Mister Scott was guileless and easy to understand - he didn't hide his motives behind traditions and proprieties, and he shared Spock's bafflement at the sometimes illogical behaviour of other humans. 

He could trust the man, who was chief engineer on the _Enterprise_ , one of Britain's only amphibious ships. And among the few amphibious ships that existed on Earth, the _Enterprise_ was the finest, and was on its way to becoming aether-ready and capable for space travel. Mister Scott's cunning and talent was to thank for that. 

Before Mister Scott could continue his grumblings, the Governor of Zanzibar finally arrived. 

"Aha Commander Spock! How nice it is to see you again," he said. Governor Said al-Mugrabi was one of the nephews of the Sultan of Oman, the official ruler of Zanzibar. He was a jovial, short man, who favoured a European style of dress with the exception of his turban, and he shook Commander Spock's hand vigorously. 

"Good afternoon Governor," Spock said politely. "This is Mister Scott, my chief engineer and assistant," he inclined his head slightly as al-Mugrabi shook Mister Scott's hand. 

“Please, please, sit,” the Governor said. 

“Sir, I will get straight to the point,” Spock said, as he respectfully took off his hat and held it on his lap while he sat. “We would like to speak to you about your position on ending slavery in the Omani Sultanate.” 

“Ah, yes,” al-Mugrabi said, sitting up a little straighter in his seat, and smiling a knowing little smile. “We have spoken about this at great lengths already, Commander Spock.”

“Indeed.”

“And I have kept up a in-depth correspondence with your people,” the Governor went on. “I have to admit, I find it slightly hypocritical that the Sultan of Oman is being asked to end a practice that has been a cornerstone of our economy for generations while the English still, themselves, keep slaves.” He glanced knowingly at Mister Scott, who glanced himself at Commander Spock, in an attempt to reign in his eyeroll. 

“I understand that,” Commander Spock went on. “But we are not making a frivolous request. There are legislative measures being taken in England as we speak to abolish slavery,” he paused for a moment, unsure if the look on al-Mugrabi's face was one or disbelief or what he was often accused of by Mister Scott, _condescension_. “The efforts to end slavery is one that every nation on Earth must undertake.” 

“As yes, so that we may join this Federation of yours,” al-Mugrabi added. 

“Yes.” 

“But why we should we care about such a thing?” the Governor went on. “The Sultanate of Oman has become a very prosperous empire since we rid ourselves of our Portuguese oppressors. Human oppressors, Commander Spock, and not just the Portuguese, but also the Persians, the Yemeni. The Omani people have been controlled by other humans for a very long time, and now we are in charge of our own selves, and this is the only way to stay in control, do you understand?”

He didn't, entirely, but Spock nodded. 

“And you are not even human!” al-Mugrabi went on. “And yet you sit here lecturing me on what every nation on this planet should do.” 

“You're correct,” Spock nodded, furrowing his brow slightly and taking a different angle. “Sir, there is a very influential slaver working in these waters, one who has supplied your own clove plantations with slaves. His name is Nero.”

The Governor nodded. “Yes, I know this Nero.”

“He is not human,” Spock said. “He is Romulan. And his people are, in fact, an enemy of the Federation. By harbouring him in your waters you, sir, are taking a very dangerous stance.” 

The Governor smiled that knowing little smile again. “And how is that, Commander Spock?” 

“Well for one thing, there are many alien forces looking for Nero,” Spock said. “He made himself a lot of enemies, not just in the Federation, before he came to hide on Earth.” 

“Nero attacked Vulcan,” the Governor said shrewdly. “Talk plainly. He attacked your people, but this is none of my concern.” 

Spock felt a slight tremor in his body, a very small shock that traveled from one knee to the middle of him, and he took a sharp breath, small enough that it wouldn't be noticeable. He felt such tremors often, as a child, and never quite knew what to do with them except ignore them. 

There were, of course, a few humans that had died in that targeted blast on Vulcan, and among them was Lady Amanda. Spock was saved from having to come up with a response by Mister Scott. 

“Vulcan and Earth are friends,” Mister Scott said. “Nae matter what happens with the Federation, that will always be true. Vulcan has given us technology and knowledge that is opening our world up faster than anything we've ever known before. And, your... Governorship, Earth will eventually have other enemies. If Vulcan is no longer our friend, we won't be able to defend ourselves.”

“Mister Scott is correct,” Spock said. “We haven't made the knowledge of Nero's residence on Earth known off-planet, because we do not wish to invite his enemies here. Earth does not have the technology or the... unity to defend itself.” 

Governor al-Mugrabi regarded Spock for a long moment, measuring him. “Look,” he said. “Nero imports a good deal of the work force we use on our clove plantations here. Without it, we would starve. There is another thing plaguing this island – piracy.” He gestured behind Spock, out the terrace, towards Forodhani Gardens. “There are hundreds of those parasites in my waters, stealing our spices and rum and cloths, all the things that are traded through this island, and we lose who knows how much money to them. You can look out today and see a bunch of them all out there in the open, in our very own Garden, like rats nesting.” The Governor leaned back in his seat and smiled again. “If you get rid of the pirates, I will give you Nero.”

There was just the sound of wind on the palm trees for a moment. 

“Get rid of the pirates,” Spock said. 

“Yes.” 

“ _All_ the pirates,” Scott said. 

“Yes.” 

“That's-” Scott sputtered. “But that's imposs-” 

“Mister Scott,” Spock warned him. “It is a difficult task, to be sure, but nothing is impossible for the _Enterprise,”_ he inclined his head at al-Mugrabi. “And I believe this is the best offer we will be getting from our esteemed host.”

Governor al-Mugrabi grinned. “It is.” 

“Very well,” Spock stood, and put his hat on. “Thank you very much for your time and hospitality, Governor. I believe you have what you would call a deal.” 

When they stepped back out into the bright, hot day, Scott squinted into the light and fanned his face with his hand. “Well that didnae go well,” he said. 

“ _Well_ is a particularly vague term, Mister Scott,” Spock said. “I believe it would depend on how you define such a thing.”

“If you think agreeing to capture all the pirates in Zanzibar is going well, then I suppose,” Scott said. 

“Indeed.”

“So we are,” Scott said, incredulously. “Going to try and capture all the pirates in Zanzibar.”

“We are going to try,” Spock said. “In addition to that, we are going to try to simply capture Nero ourselves.” 


	2. An Account of Nyota's Escape from the Slavers

**Three: An Account of Nyota's Escape from the Slavers**

The day she was taken, Nyota was minding the sheep away from the camp with her older sister, Penda. They lounged among the grass not far from the southern lip of Ngorongoro Crater, at the bottom of which their family lived. The sheep grazed lazily and Nyota lay in the grass, watching clouds drift across the sky. Her heart was still beating angrily in her chest from an argument she had with her father earlier in the day, her face hot, her breath shaky. She tried to calm herself, but remembering every little detail of the argument made it impossible. 

Her sister Penda flit among the sheep, weaving strands of grass and singing wordlessly to herself. Penda and Nyota looked nothing alike, even dressed similarly in short leather dresses, colourful strands of beads around their necks and waists. Penda was womanly and majestic, with round hips and breasts, thick curly hair that was in keeping with most of their family and tribesmen. Penda was kind hearted and sweet voiced, and her singing could soothe even the fussiest baby. 

Nyota was skinny and boyish, with no hips and a flat chest. She was ungraceful and had a temper to boot. And she was an oddity, with hair that grew in straight. Penda loved Nyota's straight hair - or she said she did, but Nyota was convinced that was just teasing. She kept her straight hair cropped close to her head so no one could see it. 

On the day Nyota was taken, a small group of men and horses were walking lazily through the tall grasses. They were white-skinned and dressed in pale shirts and dark trousers, and Penda called out to them flirtatiously as they wandered closer. 

The men responded in Kiswahili, of which each girl only had a passing knowledge. Nyota got up to her feet and watched as they came closer. " _Karibuni_ ," she said, clumsily, when they came to join the girls and the sheep. The men had tattoos on their faces, gleaming, serious eyes, and strange, pointed ears. 

The leader of the men, who had the most serious eyes of all, inclined his head and introduced himself as Nero. 

"They're star-men!" Penda whispered to Nyota in Datooga, their own tongue. "I've never seen one before. How exciting!" 

"Mhm," Nyota murmured back noncommittally, her face and neck tingling slightly at Nero's gaze. 

They accepted the star-men's request for a meal and shared the lunch they brought with them, dried meats and fruit. The star-men in return shared the water from their canteens. They were talkative and flirtatious, but they managed to not say very much about themselves. Their Kiswahili was accented and limited, and Nyota and Penda's even more so, but they managed to understand that the star-men were no longer welcome on their home world, and had come to Earth to explore. 

Nero was the quietest, speaking only to correct or ridicule one of his men, but Nyota was entranced by him, and by the sadness in his dark eyes and the mystery behind them. She asked, clumsily, and boldly, if he had a wife. Nero said he had, but she was dead. Nyota could sympathize, as her own mother was dead. Nero looked at her, and then down at his meal. For a very brief, wild moment, she wondered if this is what it felt like to fall in love. 

\--

Nyota and her sister fell asleep at some point during that meal, and she woke hours later, far from home, shackled and confused. She bolted up when she opened her eyes, but was restrained by her chains - around her waist, and her hands and her neck - which kept her so close to Penda behind her, and another woman in front. Penda was still asleep, and Nyota shook her awake, whispering in Datooga and looking for a way to get out. 

Nero's men were waiting as she made her attempt, however, and they overpowered her. Nero watched her dispassionately as she struggled and kicked and shouted at them, not laughing like his men, his eyes as dark and sad as before, and they made her blood run cold. 

Penda fought too, but not as much or as well as Nyota. She didn't cry right away, neither of them did, but later when it was dark and nobody could see them, they huddled together on the ground. Penda wept and Nyota held her tightly, breathing deeply and thinking of revenge. 

\--

Two nights before her sister died, one of the star-men tried to lie with Nyota. She didn't feel particularly ashamed that she did not fight him off, as she knew it would be fruitless, and she lay there shrewd-eyed and unaroused, no matter what he tried. When his arms were around her and he was distracted, Nyota felt very carefully around his belt, and her fingers discovered some long, thin metal pins. She slipped them out of his belt, and hid them in her palms, her chains clanking. 

Before the star-man could get any further, Nero barked something out at him and he stood up, slipping himself back into his trousers. The two bickered for a short while, in some harsh, guttural sounding tongue, what sounded to Nyota like a star-language. She remained on the ground, listening, imagining those haughty, prideful sounds coming out of a woman's mouth. The man stormed off, and Nero looked at Nyota. She looked right back at him, boldly, until eventually he blinked and went back to the comfortable tent where he and his men stayed at night. Afterwards, Nyota showed Penda the thin, long metal pins she had stolen. "Not now," Penda told her, the two whispering in Datooga. "We have nowhere to go. They'll catch us." They would, as they had caught every other poor soul who had tried to run off, shooting beams of light from small shiny weapons, leaving the bodies in a shallow grave. Nyota slipped the pins into her mouth and hid them beside her teeth. 

They waited, but it didn't matter because at that point Penda was already sick, and two days later she was dead. 

\--

After three months of marching, the slave caravan arrived in a town on the coast called Bagamoyo. Nyota had spent the last month listening intently to the star-men and their strange tongue, and the various languages spoken by the other captives around her. A small boy called Safi took Penda's place in the line behind Nyota, and he spoke only Kiswahili. He was talkative, despite being beaten often for being too noisy, so Nyota often had to shush him. When the star-men were distracted, however, they conversed in quiet voices, trading stories and names and words, and Nyota's understanding of Kiswahili grew.

Bagamoyo was a huge, busy town to Nyota, full of lavish stone buildings with twisting spires. Bagamoyo meant "lay down your heart", which meant nothing to Nyota, as her heart was already in the ground with her sister. 

The star-men put Nyota and the other captives in a cramped, tiny vault - a stone chamber with raised ledges along the sides. The chains connecting them to each other about their waists and necks were bolted to the walls, and a small window on the side of the vault let in seawater at night when the tide came in. The water flooded the floor of the vault, washing away their filth, and it stung at the wounds on Nyota's legs. 

Safi was panicky, like many of the others by the water pouring in from the window. Nyota swallowed her own fear and lifted Safi into her arms, as they were wedged between other captives far from the ledges on the walls. Safi lay his head on her shoulder and wept, and when the seawater stopped at her chest, she slept as best she could standing up. 

The seawater drained away by morning, and Safi and a few other captives were taken away. It was cool in the vault that day, and as there was slightly more room to move about, Nyota fell asleep again. 

Nyota had never seen a boat before, or the ocean, though she had of course heard stories. It wasn't a particularly big boat, and from where she was chained on the deck to the other captives, she listened intently to the languages spoken around her, and looked about for Nero and the star-men. They weren't there - the captives had been passed on to human captors, and Nyota paid them no mind - there were too many people involved in her capture to focus on. There was only one group that captured her sister and stood there while she sickened and died. 

The boat crossed the Strait of Zanzibar within a day, and came into Stonetown Harbour. 

It was unlike anything Nyota, or any of the captives, had seen. Countless ships bobbed in the bay, from tiny dingys and modest fishing dhows to gigantic foreign yachts. The docks and beach were crawling with men and boys, more people than Nyota had seen her in life, going rapidly about their business. 

They were marched again off the boat, and not too far into town, through muddy, twisting alleys between stone buildings that crowded in on each other. It was overwhelming, and she was tired, but Nyota tried to keep her head upright and take in everything she saw, to look down every alley, taking in every dead end and low wall. She didn't know what she was planning, but she planned nonetheless.  

\--

So when she was standing in that slave pit, Nyota made her decision. Her sister was already dead, and the little boy she had befriended in Bagamoyo was gone; she had no obligations to the other captives, even though her heart ached for them. She wasn't going to be of any use to anyone if she was sold off, and she didn't even know yet the dizzying possibilities of where she could end up as a slave. The hot blue sky started to darken, and Nyota knew it was time to make her move. 

From the back of her mouth she produced the long, thin metal pins that she had stolen that night long ago. She held them between her teeth and picked at the shackles on her wrists, facing away from the other captives, huddled into the wall. A shackle fell from her right wrist and she caught it before it hit the ground, then stooped to undo the ones at her ankles. 

When her legs were free, she reached with the tips of her fingers to the lip of the pit. It wasn't very deep, only a foot taller than most of the captives. Nyota was taller than most of the other women, and with her long graceful legs she managed to jump up and grab on to the edge of the pit. A few failed attempts, punctuated by long, tense waits in between them, and eventually she managed to scramble out of the pit. 

Nyota lifted herself up and balanced on the edge of the pit, eyes wide and alert, listening. Nero and his men were long gone, having disappeared when Nyota and the other slaves were transferred to the boat, leaving only the local Swahili slave traders in charge of the captors. 

Nyota crept along low to the ground, slinking so low her ribs touched the dirt. She cradled her manacled left wrist to her chest, so as not to make a sound, and crawled towards a stone wall on the end of the slave market. It was tall and had a wrought iron gate, and if Nyota was out of alternatives if she couldn't climb it. 

The gate got closer and closer, and Nyota's crawl became more and more focused. She sped up slightly, and suddenly heard a shout, and the _pew pew_ the strange star-man weapon. Nyota fluidly bolted up from her crouch, never taking her eyes off the gate, and kept sprinting, even as more cries of " _basi!"_ rang out.

She leaped at the gate with a running start, gripping the bars so hard her palms were bloody. She cleared the gate just as the guards arrived there, and she stumbled a bit as she hit the ground (which was cobbled in stone). She rolled back onto her feet and kept running.

The guards shot at her through the bars of the gate, but she didn't hesitate, or look back, or flinch as the beams of light flew so near her she could feel the heat. She did nothing but run, naked and dizzy and starving and essentially blind, towards where she thought the ocean would be. 

Nyota turned down twisting, winding alleys, tiny ones and wider ones, startling the few people who were out on the streets still - old men chewing _qat_ and drinking coffee - but Nyota didn't even notice them. She flew past a line of drying clothes and tore a rectangular, bright yellow piece of cloth from it as she went passed.

Long after the cries of the slave traders died out, Nyota still ran, clutching the cloth around herself and her chain to her wrist, finally arriving at a wide opening of the city walls, and the beach. 

She assumed the slavers didn't think she could swim - and she couldn't. Her plan was to pick her way up the beach for the rest of the night, and get as far away from this place as she could, and let them assumed she drowned. 

Slowing down to catch her breath was a mistake, however, and she collapsed in the water before she took another step. 

It was there that Gaila the star-girl found her, hours later. 


	3. Forodhani Night Market

**Four: Forodhani Night Market**

Jimmy showed up the next night at the market, wearing nothing but a ragged old pair of trousers and a little cloth cap that had seen better days. 

Gaila had left Nyota in charge and gone down the Garden to get them chocolate street pizza from a different stall. Nyota turned a set of wheels to press the juice out of sugarcane stalks, draining the juice into glass mugs to sell alongside their meals. The work was repetitive and soothing, and Nyota found herself humming the tunes her sister would sing while she did work like this. 

“That is a beautiful song,” a cheeky voice in a very strange accent said, and sure enough, Nyota turned to see Jimmy's sunburned face beaming at her. 

“Gaila's not here,” she said, continuing her work. “She'll be back in a minute.” 

“That doesn't mean I can't say hello to you,” Jimmy said. He gestured at one of the mugs of sugarcane juice lined up on the table. “Can I have that?”

“Can you pay?”

“Gaila usually just gets me to pay in charm,” he smiled at her again. 

Nyota raised an eyebrow at him. 

“Fine,” he said, and pulled a five-shilling coin out from under his hat. He placed it on the table. 

“ _Asante,_ ” Nyota said, smiling despite herself. She put the coin in the pouch they had made for their money, and helped herself to a mug of the sugarcane juice. 

“Hey,” he said, holding out his glass. “Cheers.” 

She looked at him quizzically until he clinked his glass against hers. “It's a toast,” he said. “To Uhura and her beautiful singing voice,” he clinked their glasses again. 

“Oh,” Nyota said, and shrugged. She clinked her glass against his this time. “ _Maisha marefu_.” She sat on the bench and looked at him for a moment while they both took a drink of the sugarcane juice. “I heard you stole a boat,” she said, finally. 

Jimmy choked a little on his juice. He wiped it off his chest and grinned, glancing around himself. “Yeah...I guess you heard that from Gaila?”

Nyota nodded, and Jimmy came to sit next to her on the bench. She slid away from him. 

“Well if she trusts you, I trust you, I guess,” Jimmy said. “What's it to you, anyway?” 

Nyota flicked a mosquito away. She wasn't entirely sure she could trust Jimmy yet. There was the fact that he was foreign, from a place she had never even heard of, that he was a man like Nero, that he was white-skinned like Nero – a million other reasons she _wanted_ to use as an excuse not to have anything to do with him. 

But there was also something about him that seemed harmless. He looked like a beat-up old beach dog that always tried to follow them home at night, one that responded when Gaila called him _Bwana Mbwa -_ “mister dog”. His open face, maybe, or his exuberance, made her want to smile and laugh with him and tell him everything about herself. 

And Penda would have liked him. 

“How did you do it?” she avoided his question, appealing to his ego. 

“It's a long story,” Jimmy grinned. “I've stolen a lot of boats, but they were small and crummy. So's this one, for that matter. We're trying to get back to America but we're going to need something bigger.” 

“How did you get away with that?” Nyota was incredulous. 

“To be honest?” Jimmy laughed. “I don't know. It's kind of a miracle.”

“Right,” Nyota frowned – we should all have such miracles, she thought – but it was hard to hold a grudge against Jimmy. “Do you think... do you think you could take me back to the coast one day?”

“Sure, like Kilwa or somewhere?”

Nyota nodded. “I mean, I have things to do first. But later. Once I'm finished with that.”

Jimmy nodded, draining his mug. “Yeah, if I don't have to pay for sugarcane juice anymore.”

Nyota smiled, again, in spite of herself. 

“Can you swim?” Jimmy asked. 

Nyota looked up at him, suspicious. “No... why?” She was suddenly very conscious of the scars left across her wrists by the slavers' manacles. 

Jimmy shrugged, and grinned at her again. “Well if you sail with me, there's a good chance you might drown. I mean, that's what Bones is always saying anyway.” 

\--

They went out to see “Bones” and the boat after the market shut down. Gaila brought an extra chocolate pizza for Bones, and a mug of sugarcane juice. Well, Nyota brought them, Gaila held hands with Jimmy and skipped all the way there. 

Jimmy's boat was anchored a few miles south of Stonetown. As the tide had gone out, it rested on the sand a few feet in the water. It was a smallish dhow, an innocuous little thing with a single lateen sail, which was currently bundled up. 

Jimmy ran into the water, shouting “Bones!” 

A man poked his head up over the hull of the boat. He was older than Jimmy, and dark-haired. He said, bluntly: “What.” 

Jimmy got up to the boat – he was waist-deep in water, and the hull of the boat came up to his shoulders. “Come down from there. I'm gonna teach the girls how to swim.”

“No thanks,” Bones said gruffly. He nodded at the women. “Miss Gaila,” he said, in greeting. “And...” 

“Uhura,” Nyota replied herself. She hesitated wading into the water, but slowly walked up to the boat, letting the warm waves gently push at her chest. “Here, we brought you some dinner.” 

“Thank you, Miss,” he said, taking the mug and the wrapped up street pizza. Up close she could see that he was white-skinned, like Jimmy, but had taken on a deep tan. He was dressed nicer than Jimmy as well, wearing a full white long-sleeved shirt with the ties done up, and clean breeches that went past his knees. 

Gaila splashed into the water behind Jimmy, laughing. “I told you you'd like Bones!” she said, already whipping off her _kangas_ and tossing them into the dhow. She was unashamed and unafraid to be naked around these men, which surprisingly made Nyota far more at ease. 

“Here,” Jimmy said, giving Nyota his hand. “Do you want to get in?” He helped her clamber up onto the hull off the dhow, and then peeled off his wet trousers and tossed them on top of Gaila's clothes.

The dhow was very small, much smaller than Nero's ship. It could only probably carry about nine or ten people, and clearly needed fewer than that to operate. But it was sturdier than Nyota had imagined, certainly sturdy enough to get across the Strait. 

Bones held out an arm for Nyota to step down into the ship – there was a bench running along the edges of the hull, and she stepped down onto it and tucked her feet under herself, her skirt already soaked through with seawater. 

“Thank you for the food,” Bones said softly.

“You're welcome,” Nyota said. He had a very kind, sad face and when he smiled at her, briefly, lop-sided, it made Nyota want to brush her cheek against her knees and smile. She wondered how such a man could end up hanging around someone like Jimmy. 

Jimmy and Gaila splashed around in the water and squealed. It was very awkward, to be sitting up here quietly with this strange, reserved man while they flounced around down there.

“How did you get here?” Bones asked, just as Nyota was about to open her mouth and ask the same thing.

“Sorry?” she asked, startled. 

“Here. To Zanzibar,” he gestured vaguely. “It's just – you're friends with Gaila, and she certainly isn't from here.”

Nyota hugged her knees again, and looked out at the stars. She hadn't told anyone that whole story, not even Gaila, although the star-girl probably pieced a lot together from how she found Nyota. 

“It's okay,” Bones said after she hesitated for so long. “Don't want to talk about it, huh? Seems there's a lot of folk here like that,” he finished his mug of sugarcane juice and set it aside. He unwrapped his chocolate banana pizza and offered her a piece of it. 

“What were you doing all on your own out here?” Nyota asked, taking a piece of the flat, fried pastry. 

Bones gestured at a leather-bound notebook sitting next to him on the bench. “I was thinking of writing a letter, but I have to watch my ink. I don't know when I'm gonna be able to get into town and get more.” 

“Writing?” 

Bones smiled ruefully, and showed Nyota his notebook, full of beautiful, curving lines. “It's mostly letters to my daughter, not that I'll be able to send them.” 

She studied his face, all the deep lines that got deeper when he said the word _daughter_ , which was a word she hadn't heard before. 

Gaila shrieked with laughter in the water. Bones nodded over the edge of the hull. “Do you want to join them?”

“I don't know...” Nyota shrugged. The thought of being in the water naked next to Jimmy made her skin crawl a little bit, no matter how much she was starting to like him. 

“Come down with me,” Bones said as he tucked his notebook under the seat. “Keep your clothes on. You gotta learn to swim, don't you?”

The water was warm and gentle as Nyota slowly lowered herself into it, letting go of the dhow. She walked next to Bones, picking across wet sand, deeper and deeper, until she had to grip onto his arm. 

“Easy now,” he said, putting a big hand on her waist, supporting her weight. He was still fully clothed, and so was she, the sea water pulling at the edges of her _kangas_. “First, we're just gonna try floating, okay? I'm right here beside you, so just lean back and sort of push your... push your chest up, all right?”

Nyota stifled a giggle as Bones stumbled over his words and pointedly looked away from her breasts, keeping his hands under her back. It was soothing, to drift in the water like this, looking up at countless twinkling stars, while the water lapped around her hair and ears. 

She floundered a bit, and Bones caught her. She laughed again, steadying herself with her hands on his arms. “How long have you been here,” she asked, “the two of you on your stolen boats?”

Bones shrugged. “About a year, give or take. Two years since we left America.”

She watched him, kicking her feet gently in the water. “Have you ever heard of a star-man named Nero?” she asked, bluntly. 

Bones nodded, not missing a beat. “Yes.” 


	4. The Watchmaker and the Murderer

**Five: The Watchmaker and the Murderer**

Leonard H McCoy, as he was known in a previous life, married young and became a very well respected doctor while still in his very early twenties. 

He met Jim Kirk in North Carolina, having left Savannah and wandered north, with a price on his head and nothing but bad memories behind him. He was working as a doctor on a ranch, and Jimmy showed up there looking for work. 

Jimmy was vivacious and charming, no matter how much Leonard tried to resist it. And he understood Leonard. He didn't ask many questions, but eventually he got the whole story out of him – how he had witnessed the murder of his father, a shipping clerk, by an employee of a rival company, and how his attempts to bring his father's killer to justice resulted in him returning the favour. 

He could stay and rot in prison, or he could leave and try to make things right with God later. He didn't feel particularly bad about what he had done, except that it would leave his wife and daughter completely alone. But Jocelyn's father was rich, and for little Joanna, maybe having a myth of a father lost in the world would be better than having one who was hanged. 

So even though it left his wife shamed, he stole away in the night. He wrote to her occasionally, using an assumed name, and sent money when he could, but with no return address, it was impossible to know if the letters were ever received. 

Jimmy grew up in Boston. He was the son of a watchmaker, who died fighting in the Revolution when Jimmy was still a baby. His mother took over the shop, working herself instead of re-marrying, and raising Jimmy and his older brother. Jimmy was learning the trade from his brother, until he was eighteen and fell in love, and was subsequently run out of town. 

“Who was she?” Bones asked, as they walked through fields in the hot Carolina summer, looking for another farm. Jimmy had gotten sick of the last one and convinced Bones to come with him, and while Bones resisted at first, the idea of a bright spark like Jimmy getting lost out in the world without him disturbed him so much he couldn't say no. “Rich man's daughter? Somebody's fiancee?”

“No,” Jimmy said around a mouthful of apple. “She was a Negro.”

Bones' jaw dropped. “What!” 

Jimmy nodded, looking wistful. “She was a maid at the inn where my brother and I drank.” 

“That's-” Bones sputtered. “You're unbelievable. You can't just go around seducing poor slave girls, god dammit that's horrible.” 

Jimmy sneered. “It wasn't like that!” he tossed his apple core angrily into the tall grass they were walking alongside. “I would never – I loved her, Bones. I would've married her. The inn was owned by the mayor, everyone else just decided...”

He trailed off when he realized Bones was laughing at him. “Only you, Jim Kirk, only you could sleep with some Negress and call it _true love_ -” 

Jimmy socked him on the chin. “You shut up about her!” he said as Bones reeled back from the blow. “Her _name_ is Molly and she _works_ at an inn. I _love her_. Just because _you_ never loved anything in your life doesn't give you the right to talk about people like that.”

“Hey!” Bones roared, raising his own fist. Jimmy stood, unflinching. Bones realized he didn't have anything to say, and the wind rustled through the grass. 

Jimmy started laughing. “Oh Christ,” he said. “Sorry I hit you.”

Bones shrugged, his face still stinging. “I deserved it.”

“Yeah you did,” Jimmy said, and he started flitting down the road again. “You were being an ass.” 

They ended up spending two years like that, wandering from place to place, Bones sending money back to his wife and child and Jimmy sending it home to his mother. Until one day they were lying in the grass outside another town in Virginia, drinking rum, and Jimmy said: 

“Let's get drunk and make bad decisions. Let's go to France.” 

Bones looked at Jimmy like he was crazy. “Why?”

“They love Americans in France,” Jimmy said like this was a well-known fact. “My mom made some watches for some French soldiers, you know, during the war. They love Americans over there.”

Bones shook his head. “I don't know if that's true. Everyone's fighting each other in France right now, don't you ever read the newspaper?”

Jimmy shrugged, and took another swig of rum. “I don't care, all I know is what we're doing right now is boring and stupid. Think about it, Bones! We can make wine and eat... I don't know, bread. You know, that French bread?”

“I'm familiar.”

Jimmy sat up in the grass, eyes gleaming from the rum. He shook Bones' shoulder. “Let's go to France Bones! Let's have an adventure! Anything's bound to be better than this!” he spread his arms wide. 

Jimmy was completely, guilelessly serious about this. He looked impossibly young, and stupid, and Bones realized that he was probably going to go through with this whether Bones came or not. This bright spark lost out in the world without him. 

He sighed heavily and didn't explicitly say yes, but Jimmy took it as consent anyway. 

They worked on various farms, saving their money and picking their way to the coast, where they wrangled their way into jobs on a cargo ship heading to France, despite the fact that neither of them had significant sailing experience. That was Jimmy and his magical charm at work. Bones wrote one last letter to his wife, hoping it would get there before she got too worried.

The first month on board that ship was idyllic. Jimmy was ecstatic the entire time. They were on the bottom rung of the sailors, swabbing decks and doing all the grunt work, but they learned a lot about rigging and pulling the sails and tying the knots, and Jimmy excelled at it, quickly becoming well liked and respected on the ship. When the French sailors realized Bones was a doctor, his popularity was secured. 

They slept in the bowels of the ships in tough, rope hammocks, Jimmy above Bones, and the younger man would lean down in the night and poke him awake. 

“Hey Bones!” he'd say. “Guess what! _True de cul,”_ he said in the clumsiest French ever, drawing out the _kooo_. “It means asshole! Hahaha!” 

Bones would feign sleep and refrain from asking who was talking about Jimmy's asshole. 

When they were a month and a half at sea, they were attacked by pirates. The pirates spoke a kind of French, but it was different, and the potty talk Jimmy had picked up didn't make it any easier to figure out what was going on. The two of them, and half of the shipmates, were taken prisoner. They were kept in the bowels of the pirate ship and forced to do the worst work – it was the exact same situation, except that now they were slaves instead of part of the crew. 

It nearly drove Jimmy insane, and it was all Bones could do to not go insane right along with him. Jimmy kept trying to fight back, and kept getting in more and more trouble. Bones had to hold him down sometimes at night. “They'll throw you overboard if you make enough trouble,” he said, “I guarantee you.” Jimmy would look at him with mad, gleaming eyes, and Bones knew he would have to do something more drastic. 

The next time Jimmy kicked up a fuss and got himself in trouble, Bones got in the way of their Barbary captors, offering himself for punishment instead. Jimmy tried to stop him, but Bones pushed him aside. He took off his shirt, as he was told, and Jimmy took it and wrapped it around Bones' leather-bound journal, the one thing they had managed to save for themselves. 

Jimmy had received the lash before this, of course, but watching them do it to Bones changed something in him. It was forty lashes, and Bones bled quite a bit, and afterward Jimmy laid down next to him on the floor of the lower deck. 

“This is all my fault,” Jimmy said miserably, pressing his heartrendingly sad face against Bones' arm. “Trying to get to stupid France.” 

“Hrm,” was the most Bones could say. 

Jimmy wiped his eyes and peered up at Bones. “I'll get us out of this,” he said. “I promise,” and then he leaned over and kissed Bones full on the mouth. 

Bones was too tired and sore to be surprised or angry. He just let himself enjoy the kiss, and drifted back to sleep. 

A week later, they were docking in Alexandria, where they were to be sold to Ottoman land owners. Jimmy woke Bones up in the middle of the night. He was serious-faced, and Bones knew instantly that they had a plan. They stole away, picking the locks on their chains with stolen tools, they stole shrouds and covered themselves up, disappearing into the Alexandria nighttime. 

At that point they had picked up enough French and Arabic from their captors to beg and haggle and find work, picking their way to Cairo where they stayed in a slum for a few months, and on and on until they got to the Red Sea. They had no plan other than to get as far away from their captors as they could, and when they reached the Red Sea they realized just how far from home they had gone. 

There was no dearth of pirates roaming up and down the Red Sea, and the two of them – a boy preternaturally skilled at sailing, and a doctor who had, at one point, been a murderer – found that type of work easily, skipping from ship to ship until they knew the Red Sea like the back of their hands, raiding _casbahs_ in Jedda and Djibouti, becoming conversational in French and Arabic (in Bones' case, at least). 

Jimmy stifled under the command of other men, however, and he ended up stealing from the pirates themselves – taking a boat right out from under the noses of one of the captains. 

They sailed for weeks, just the two of them, into the Indian Ocean, on this two-masted thing that was too big for them to handle. Jimmy would laugh at Bones' grumbling, pulling him down to be with him on the deck of their own, personal ship. 

It was a little like heaven, having endless nights drifting under a starry sky, in their own little world where no rules applied. They kissed, a lot, and Jimmy would run his hands over Bones' browning skin, marvelling over how the older man never burned. Sometimes Bones would catch both of Jimmy's hands in one of his, and overpower him. 

Eventually their rations began to run out. They considered finding a town or a ship to raid, but Jimmy's conscience was starting to come back, and he got cold feet. Before they could make a decision, their world was shattered by the sound of cannon fire. Neither Bones or Jimmy had the strength or experience to fight off the star-man when he boarded their ship.

Nero wasn't interested in them as slaves, though, and at this point they knew to act obedient enough to stay alive. They worked as part of Nero's crew for two weeks – barely part of Nero's crew, as the other star-men all looked down on them. They might as well have been slaves. The star-men all spoke their star-tongue and Bones and Jimmy barely had any idea what was going on. 

One day Nero captured two small fishing dhows, full of mostly teenaged boys from the coast. He intended to take them to Zanzibar and say they had come from further inland, touting their fluency in Kiswahili as a valuable asset. 

One of the boys was injured in the capture, and Bones tried to tend to his wounds. Nero knocked Bones down and beat him with a whip, an attack that twice as bad as the one on the Barbary ship. 

When Bones could bear to look up again, he expected to see Jimmy fly into an unthinking rage. But Jimmy stood there, blank-faced, and carried out Nero's orders. For a moment Bones thought, _they've finally done it. This world finally broke him._

That night, however, Jimmy did the impossible. Somehow, not knowing a word of Kiswahili, and the fisher boys only knowing a little bit of Arabic, he snuck them all back onto their stolen dhows. He did it quietly, and slowly, right under the nose of the star-men on watch. Then he woke Bones, and helped him limp over and onto one of the dhows. He cut the dhows free with a stolen machete, and they sailed off in the opposite direction of the _Narada_ 's path. 

And then he took one of the fishing dhows, which he figured was fair. 

So almost two years after Jimmy had his bright idea to move to France, they were in a tiny fishing dhow, aimless in the Indian Ocean, with no idea how to get home. And after time they found themselves drawn back again and again to Zanzibar. 


	5. Sisters, and The HMS Enterprise

**Six: Sisters**

Bones told Nyota that whole story, as he helped her stay afloat in the water that night. By the time the sun was rising, Nyota was treading water cautiously and keeping afloat on her own. 

“I don't know why I told you all that,” Bones said, keeping a good eye on her. “Only Jimmy knows all that other stuff.” 

Nyota smiled and attempted to propel herself towards him. “One day I'll tell you all about my sister and I,” she said, “and we'll be even.” 

She and Gaila walked home as the sun rose, their _kangas_ dripping wet, and they slept through the hottest part of the day. 

\--

They met up with Jimmy and Bones a few more times after that – but then suddenly their boat was gone, and Gaila fretted as they cleaned up their stall and headed home that night. 

“Usually he tells me when he's planning to leave,” she said sadly. “At least one day in advance.” 

“Well men are like that,” Nyota replied. “They're liars.” She didn't let herself think about how disappointed she was to not see Bones. Her plan was coming together, after a fashion – the two of them had been showing her how to handle the sail on the dhow, taking it for little journeys around the harbour at night when it was quiet. She could keep herself afloat in the water, and the two of them knew Nero's ship well. She needed something more, though. A dhow couldn't board a tallship, and she would not win in a fight against Nero. She needed a phaser, or a fighter. 

The boys showed up again three days later. Jimmy came to their stall, and feigned sulkiness when they didn't throw themselves at him. 

“Sorry we had to leave so suddenly, ladies,” he said, stealing a spot on their bench while they worked to fulfill meal orders. “We saw Spock's ship hiding around and decided to go up to Pemba for a little bit.”

“Who's Spock?” Nyota asked. 

“Some stupid star-man,” Jimmy grumbled, dangling pieces of fish for the _pakas_ gathered around his feet. “He's out for pirates. He almost caught us, twice! We're on a first-name basis now.” 

Gaila would've laughed then, usually, but she was still mad at Jimmy for abandoning her the way he had. Jimmy eventually got the picture, and left them alone at their stall. 

“Listen, Gaila,” Nyota said, as she cracked an egg open over a pastry, making pizza. “I'm not sure yet, but I think I might be leaving soon. With Jimmy.” 

“Hm,” was Gaila's response. 

“I have to go find the people who killed my sister,” Nyota said, bluntly. Gaila paused slightly in her movements, but otherwise ignored her. This was the first time, Nyota realized, she had explicitly told Gaila what had happened. “I'm sorry, Gaila, but I have to. I love staying here with you, but I... can't.”

“Everyone leaves me,” Gaila said, so softly Nyota could barely hear. 

“Huh?” she asked. 

Gaila turned and looked up at her, big blue eyes peering out from under her headwrap. “I had sisters, too,” she said. “On the aether-ship. We were all supposed to escape together, but here I am, all alone,” her voice was shaky and vulnerable and quiet in a way Nyota had never heard before. 

“I'm sorry, Gaila.”

“Don't go,” Gaila said. 

Nyota shrugged, impotently. “I have to. I have to do this for her.” 

“Are you going to come back?” Gaila had turned back to her pans now, furiously mixing ingredients. 

“I'd like to,” Nyota said. 

“You won't. If you go, you won't come back. You'll die. It's too dangerous. Don't go.” Gaila stared down at her cooking. 

Nyota bit her lip. She was beginning to love Stonetown, and Gaila, too, but she missed her home and she knew she had to at least try to return. And she couldn't return without killing Nero, or she wouldn't be able to live with herself. 

She struggled for a word to say, in Kiswahili, or in English, or in Arabic, but she couldn't find one that would explain how she felt. 

Gaila sighed and opened up their money pouch. She gave Nyota two coins. “Can you go get some mackerel from Sadiki, please?” she asked, politely, but she was still clearly furious. 

Nyota smiled wryly and nodded. She picked her way down the stalls of the night market, smiling in greeting to all the familiar faces. There was a breeze, and it was slightly cooler than usual, so she wrapped her arms around her shoulders. 

Down on the other end of the market, way over on the gardens, closer to the beach, she could see Kirk having an animated conversation with another man, similar in height in build. She wandered over to them, curiously. 

The other man had black hair and richly complexioned, sun kissed skin. She had seen a few traders in the harbour with similar features, but she didn't know where they came from. 

“Come onnnnn,” Jimmy was whining. “I bet the guys we're tracking can help us get him back, once we get them to talk. Stop fretting about it so much.”

The other man shook his head, tight-lipped. He was clutching a small telescope, and from this distance Nyota could see a long, heavy-looking straight sword strapped to his naked back, inside an elaborately decorated scabbard. 

The man's eyes met hers. Jimmy noticed, and spun around in the sand. “Uhura!” he cried. “What are- what are you doing down here?”

“I could ask the same,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. 

Jimmy fidgeted. “Uhura, I like you,” he said. “But this is pirate stuff, not girl stuff.”

“Shut up.” Nyota rolled her eyes. 

The other man laughed quietly, and Jimmy shook a finger at him. “You see? I know you can understand me you son of a bitch!” 

The other man launched into a rapid-fire tirade of words, in a tongue Nyota was unfamiliar with, something that sounded precise and poetic at the same time. 

“What's going on?” she asked. 

Jimmy brushed off the other man's angry words, and put an arm over his shoulder, even while the other man scowled and looked away. “This is Sulu Hikaru,” Jimmy said. “This guy, this is the guy. He can fight like a motherfucker. I've seen him kill five men without even flinching.” 

Sulu shrugged Jimmy's arm off his shoulder then, shaking his head. 

“Sulu _usually_ helpsme and Bones out, but I can't get him to this time.” 

“What are you planning to do?” Nyota asked. 

Jimmy grimaced and wiggled around a little bit. Then he sighed. “We're pretty sure we saw Nero's ship, it's been up and down the mainland. It's coming back tomorrow.” 

“Why didn't you tell me!” Nyota cried. 

“I didn't want to get you girls involved,” Jimmy shrugged. 

“Jim Kirk,” Nyota said very slowly. “I want to be involved.” Jimmy didn't waver, and Nyota tried a different tactic. Even though Bones seemed like he should be in charge, it was clearly Jimmy that made all the final decisions about that little boat. “Look, I can help,” she said. “My Kswahili and Arabic is better than yours, and Bones'. And I can help on the boat now, you know that, it's not like I'll get in the way. There's lots I can do to help.” 

Jimmy scratched his neck and waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Like certain other services?”

She punched him in the eye. 

“Ow! Fine, okay,” Jimmy laughed a little in shock as he stepped back. “I didn't mean it. You can help. Jeeze.” 

Sulu was laughing again, and he said something while smiling at her, the feeling of which Nyota understood as _“I like this girl”._

“So help me get this guy to come aboard too,” Jimmy said. 

“ What's the matter?” Nyota asked.  
  
Sulu's eyes drooped sadly and he said, slowly enough that she could catch each unfamiliar word: _“Pavel wo sagashite imasu.”_

“Sulu has a little buddy,” Jimmy said, from where he was now sitting down in the sand. “Pavel has better English than him and usually translates. Sulu won't go anywhere without him.” 

Sulu's fingers tightened over the little telescope in his hands. 

“So go get him,” Nyota said. “What's the problem?”

Jimmy looked up at Sulu, who then looked glumly up at Nyota. 

“Why?” Nyota furrowed her brow. “Where is he?”

**Seven: The _HMS Enterprise_**

“It's a real shame, Mister Scott,” Kyle said. “To be spending all your time constantly fixin' a piece of junk like this.” 

Mister Scott scowled. “Excuse me, Mister Kyle,” he replied. “But this fine lady is the first of her kind. It's not her fault she needs lots of love and affection, as we all do in our early days.” He tightened a small cog in the elaborate clockwork. 

Mister Scott crouched in front of the mechanical heart of the _HMS Enterprise_ , far below on the second deck, with Lieutenant Kyle. He shook his head dejectedly at what had become of the clock-work, steampowered engine that inflated the balloons that would allow the ship to fly, and the forcefield that _should_ have enabled the ship to pierce the aether-sphere and fly through space. 

It was daunting work, to be sure, taking care of one of the few amphibious ships on Earth and the only one that might ever make it to space. As a sailing ship, the _Enterprise_ was very simple and only required a crew of about four or five men. As Earth's first planned aether-ship, it took all of Mister Scott's effort and genius to keep it in good condition. 

But it was so new, and _so_ fragile. 

“We're not even using her to her potential,” Kyle went on. “Down here, chasin' pirates, and on the _sea_. We're not even flyin'.” 

The _Enterprise_ had intercepted a pirate ship, a sloop speeding past Kiwani Bay, and boarded her easily. Five pirates – all of them startlingly young and bearing the marks of past slavery – and a meagre pile of booty was confiscated. 

“Aye,” Mister Scott sighed, grudgingly. “But we're still doing good work, mind. Commander Spock has a higher mission, after all, and we're doing very important work,” he gestured for another tool, and Kyle handed it to him. 

“Well that'd be a lot easier to swallow if the commander actually followed through.” 

“Aye, but don't let him catch you talking that way. He knows what he's doing,” Mister Scott sighed again and wiped his brow. “Even if he keeps freeing all his prisoners.” 

\--

At that very moment Commander Spock was in his own cabin at the stern of the ship, speaking to one of the captured pirates. 

She was their leader, a Mozambican woman no older than twenty, and she sat across from him at his wide, wooden desk, picking her teeth with a knife. 

“I have orders to return you to the Governor of Zanzibar,” Commander Spock said, in perfect Kiswahili. “Where you will be no doubt imprisoned for a very long time.” 

“Of course,” she replied. “What else would he do with a filthy pirate?”

Commander Spock leaned forward and poured her a cup of hot chai tea. “I am willing, however, to ignore my responsibilities, if you have something you can give me, Miss...?”

She looked at the cup of tea waiting, and back up at Spock. She wasn't biting. 

“Do you know a star-man named Nero?” Spock asked. 

“Oh yes, very well,” she said, smiling shrewdly. 

“I will be honest with you. I am not, personally, interested in capturing individual pirates,” he almost launched into a speech about Earth's candidacy in the Federation being predicated on the official actions of governments, not just its criminals, but backed off when he realized this woman probably wouldn't care. “I am only interested in capturing Nero and his men. I would be willing to let you and your friends go if you tell me what you know about him.” 

The woman smiled again, and leaned forward. “That ship of his, the _Narada_?” 

“Yes?”

“It's supposed to be aether-ready, but it's not. Maybe a year or two ago, but not anymore, it's too damaged. Something's fried in his engine,” she leaned back and took her cup of tea. “He has this reputation of being uncatchable, and it's such an old reputation that nobody tries to catch him anymore. But he is catchable. He can't fly.” 

Commander Spock nodded, mulling over this information. “Thank you for your cooperation,” he said. 


	6. Eight: The Prince and the Pirate

**Eight: The Prince and the Pirate**

Hikaru Sulu had been a pirate for as long as he could remember. 

Hikaru's great-grandfather had been a samurai, who refused to follow Grand Minister Hideyoshi's demand of loyalty from all the samurai, and fought to the bitter end when they tried to take his weapons away. His _daishō –_ the set of two swords, one big, one small – was hidden in the family's small house, the knowledge of it was passed from first son to first son. 

Hikaru's parents were poor fishermen. After Hikaru's father died of a fever, his mother took little Hikaru and their secret swords and went to the island of Tsukuda, in the middle of the Sumida river, near the city of Edo. She worked in the river and on small boats, and Hikaru worked alongside her, spending a quite idyllic – and now, barely memorable – childhood learning to fish and sail and wading in the river. 

When the little fisher village was attached by pirates when Hikaru was eight, his mother saw the opportunity to save herself and her son, by pledging their lives to the pirates. Hikaru was confused, but they were alive, and soon his mother taught him how to use the swords. 

The smaller sword was lost at some point in various raids and battles. Hikaru became quite skilled at the katana, however, between his mother's tutelage and the other pirates sparring with him, laughing at the little boy with the huge sword as he very earnestly went through the _kata_ , trying to balance on the deck of the stolen two-masted Chinese junk. 

The years on that ship while his mother was still alive were the most joyful ones he had, mostly because she was happy then. A life of piracy suited her far better than a life of serfdom, even if, as a woman, she had to be several times fiercer than any of the men. 

It was hard work for Hikaru as a child. The other pirates were mean and lewd, and he was worked to the bone. But the times at night when his mother would hold him close to her and stroke his hair as he drifted off to sleep made it worthwhile. 

His mother died in a raid against another ship when Hikaru was eleven. There was no sympathy for him after that. He was on the bottom rung of that stolen junk; he was beaten and kicked and had to fight for his meals. 

Hikaru became a very efficient killer. By the time he was sixteen, he had almost a hundred raids on various small towns in the Ryūkyū islands, and on hapless European ships that stubbornly kept coming to try and force trade upon Edo. Hikaru and his katana became vital to each and every mission. 

Other than that, however, he mostly kept apart from the other pirates, prone to pining and sulkiness. He taught himself to read from the shipping manifests of the boats they raided, and occasionally he was lucky when they sacked a higher-class village, and found a novel or two. If he had nothing to read he would get drunk and look at the stars, and nobody bothered to talk to him. 

Hikaru was happiest when the ship was at sea and he was helping turn the sails – leaning off the hull of the ship, putting all his weight into a rope to turn the sail inward, sailing into the wind. He liked the wind against his face, and the tension in his arms as he guided the ship across those rough, unknowable waters. 

When Hikaru was nineteen, they went up the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to harass the Ainu villages on the islands there. They came across a small outpost of fur traders on the island of Urup.

There were about six of them, light-haired Muscowvy men of varying ages, and the pirates came on them as they were trudging back to their outpost, dragging two fat, dead seals on hooks. 

Hikaru and the pirates bounded up to them, swords glinting in the sunlight – their ship did not have cannons, and they always attacked their prey on foot. They ran up the rocky shore, in the freezing water, and the fur traders were startled and vulnerable. Hikaru swung his sword emotionlessly, as he always did, without the intent to kill – not at first.

They chased their prey back to their outpost, where they found piles of fur and chests of gold. 

The littlest Muscowvy, a skinny, beardless boy with unruly curls, fought the hardest at the outpost, throwing himself as the pirates even as the other men admonished him with cries of “ _tsarevich, nyet!”_

The boy ran into Hikaru's sword arm, beating little fists against his chest, and Hikaru pushed him over. The “captain” of the stolen Chinese junk, if any of the pirates could be called such, picked the boy up by his shirt and laughed at him. 

“Look at this one, Hikaru,” he said. “Look at what he's got.” 

The boy was wearing a thick silver pendant around his neck, stamped with a two-headed eagle. 

“ _Ekaterina,”_ the captain said. “He's royalty. Keep him alive!” 

Hikaru rolled his eyes and kept the boy secure with one arm as they continued the raid. He only had to kill one of the older men, and they took the boy and the other youngest trader hostage. They couldn't really communicate with the Muscowvy, so they tried to make the message clear that they were to go home and demand a ransom for the prince. 

The boy never stopped fighting, even as Hikaru dragged him back to the junk. Hikaru dumped him below deck, in the corner of the cabin he shared with another man, and he finally got a good look at him in the fading light. 

He was only about fifteen, this boy, if that old. He breathed heavily and looked up at Hikaru with gigantic, stubborn eyes. He started shouting again – of course, he had been shouting the whole time – in some interrogative, threatening tongue that sounded ridiculous coming out of such a sweet little face. Hikaru smiled wryly and secured a length of rope around the boy, ignoring his invectives. When it became quite clear that there was no hope of escape, the boy shut up and looked away, too stubborn to cry or sleep. 

They circled Urup and the other islands for a few days, and they left the boy tied up there in the corner. Saito, Hikaru's cabin mate, tried to take liberties with him, but Hikaru kicked him away. 

“Leave him alone, you filthy dog,” he would say. 

“He's our bounty, we can do what we want with him,” Saito – who was large and ugly and uncultured – spat back, laughing. This happened every night, and the boy would look between them with large, challenging eyes. 

Hikaru brought the boy food and water every day, and after that initial struggle of being brought onboard, the boy never kicked up a fuss. He drank from Hikaru's cup obediently, and didn't wiggle or fight when Hikaru untied him to relieve himself, or secured him again. 

Hikaru's sword arm had been injured in the raid – while keeping a hold on the boy and unable to use his left arm for defense, he had taken all the blows on his right arm, resulting in a huge deep bruise that he was certain went all the way down to the bone. There was a split in the skin at the top, not terribly deep or wide, but one that kept reopening. Hikaru could go about his day, but with great difficulty. 

On the third night he decided to let the boy eat for himself. He did not tie him up again after letting him relieve himself, and sat with him in the corner of the cabin. Hikaru had brought two small bowls of cold rice, and gave one to the boy. 

The boy looked at the bowl and the chopsticks blankly, and looked at Hikaru for guidance. Hikaru lifted his own chopsticks, but by now his arm was stiff and swollen, and the fine movements of his fingers sent pain all the way up to his elbow. He winced and dropped the chopsticks.

“Ai!” the boy gasped in sympathy. He lifted Hikaru's sleeve and gasped again when he saw the ugly, huge bloody bruise. He spoke, for the first time in three days, and the tongue sounded much softer now, in that quiet little voice, accompanied by wide, worried eyes. The boy tugged on Hikaru's elbow and stood up, and before he knew it, Hikaru was leading him belowdecks to where their booty was piled – furs upon furs and small chests of money. 

He kept a close eye on the boy as he opened one of the chests and produced a large, clear glass bottle of vodka. He sat on the floor and gestured for Hikaru to sit with him. 

The boy tore off part of his undershirt. He opened the bottle and took a pull from it, and then offered it to Hikaru, who did the same. Then the boy spilled some of the vodka onto his shred of shirt. He took Hikaru's bruised arm, and pressed the wet cloth against it. 

Hikaru winced and tried to stifle his moan at the stinging pain from the vodka. 

“Ai, tch,” the boy said, murmuring sympathetically. He took the cloth away, stained with a line of blood. Hikaru's heart sank when he saw a small glob of yellow – the beginnings of infection. The boy continued to press the wet cloth into Hikaru's wound, taking it away and away until nothing came up anymore. 

He ripped a new piece from his undershirt and tied it tight around the wound, finishing it with a neat little knot. He beamed, and looked at Hikaru for approval, who nodded. Then he lifted Hikaru's arm and placed a chaste little kiss on top of the bandage, smiling up at Hikaru with a face full of youth and ignorance. 

Hikaru was startled into smiling back. “ _Arigato,”_ he said. 

The boy beamed again and turned to the chest, where he took out a small telescope, embellished with engraved silver. 

He turned it over in his hands lovingly, and murmured something, looking up at Hikaru questioningly. 

“What the fuck is he doing down here?” Saito roared, storming over to their corner. 

Hikaru rolled his eyes, even as Saito yanked the telescope out of the boy's hands and threw it back into the chest. “He was showing me where the vodka was. Don't get your panties in a bunch.”

Saito snorted, and lifted the bottle of vodka from the floor, taking a long pull from it. “Don't fraternize with the hostage,” he said, slapping Hikaru across the back of the head. “Get him back to the cabin.” 

The boy's mouth was set into a small frown, his eyes drooping, and he said nothing as Hikaru tied him back up in their cabin. Saito watched, gulping down vodka. “What a sap,” he said. “Mooning over some _gaijin_ boy. We're getting out of Okhotsk, it's getting too cold. Probably doesn't matter, he's probably not even a real prince.” 

\--

He wasn't. 

Pavel Andreivich was the second son of an illegitimate daughter of Ekaterina, born before Ekaterina became Empress and hidden in the town of Tula, where Irina, the daughter, married an astronomer. Pavel grew up learning how to make telescopes and little mathematical tools, and he was ten when he first learned about his secret royal heritage. 

They wrote letters to his grand-mama the Empress, but she mostly denied her daughter's existence. The only proof Irina had was a thick silver seal, which she gave to Pavel because of his enthusiasm. At fifteen, with a head full of romantic tales, he asked permission to go away on an expedition to the far east, to the Sea of Okhotsk. His parents were skeptical, but eventually gave in, and Pavel used his easily faked minor royal heritage to win sway over the men of the expedition, hoping to make contact with some undiscovered indigenous tribe and return to Russia a modern hero. 

There would be no ransom, not that he had any way to tell Hikaru. 

\--

A few weeks after their capture, when they were sailing south in the Nihon Sea towards the Ryūkyū islands, the other fur trapper fell ill with campaign fever. They kept him locked in a separate cabin until he died. 

The boy cried about this, quietly, hiding his face in his corner. 

That night Hikaru waited until Saito was snoring loudly, and then he crept over and untied the sniffling boy, who looked up at him curiously, tears still on his face. 

Hikaru brought him out onto the deck, with some extra furs, and they sat in the fresh air, the boy occasionally sniffling. 

“Here,” Hikaru said bluntly after debating with himself about what to say. He unceremoniously thrust the delicate little telescope at the boy. 

The boy's eyes went wide and he very gently took the telescope. “ _Spasibo, bolshoe spasibo_!” he cried, and he leaned forward to kiss Hikaru on each cheek. 

Hikaru was confused, wondering if that was just the way things were done among the Muscowvy, and if it wasn't, what it was supposed to mean. 

They spent that whole night, cuddled up in their furs, looking at the stars. The boy mostly just murmured on his own language, forgetting or not caring that Hikaru didn't speak it. He pointed out stars, repeating the names until Hikaru said them back, and then he would beam at him and go back to what he was talking about. Hikaru just looked at him, and remembered what it was like before his mother died, when all of this bloodshed and violence was worth it. 

The boy stopped talking eventually, and just looked back at him. He pointed to himself. “Pavel,” he said. He took Hikaru's hand and held it to his chest. “Pavel Andreivich.” 

Hikaru drank in the sight, and the feeling of his rough hand on Pavel's scrawny chest. He gently took Pavel's hand and held it against his own. “Sulu Hikaru,” he said. 

It wasn't long after that that Hikaru decided he needed to get Pavel off the stolen Chinese junk. The pirates had lost interest in Pavel and any ransom that may or may not come, and Hikaru knew eventually they would get impatient with him. 

He had Pavel constantly ready, with his telescope tucked into his shirt, dried fruit in his pockets. The next time they came across a European ship, he sneaked Pavel on board during the raid, and they stole one of the little row boats. They were in the middle of busy shipping lanes, and Hikaru rowed the boat as furiously and as fast as he could. 

After hours of rowing, they spotted another European ship on the horizon. The pirates hadn't come after them – perhaps the booty on the last ship was simply too good to worry about them. Hikaru took Pavel's pendant from around the boy's neck. 

“Do you want this?” he asked. They still couldn't understand each other, although they had a few words in common – mispronounced mashings of the other's language that would mean something only to them. 

Pavel bit his lip and looked at the pendant for a little while, and then he slowly shook his head. 

Hikaru threw the pendant into the ocean. They may have been able to sell it, but they needed to be picked up by a boat before they capsized or died of thirst, and it was better for their rescuers to think Pavel was nobody. 

The ship turned out to be Portuguese, and they worked on that ship until it got to the Philippines. Pavel stopped to write a letter to his mama, and they went looking for another ship to work on. By then they were more or less fluent in their made up mish mash of a language, and in other areas. It started with Pavel gently, shyly kissing Hikaru in the night, out of sight of anyone around them. 

But Pavel himself attracted too much attention, even when his skin burned and peeled in the sun. Hikaru found plants ashore that he pressed into a lotion to rub on Pavel's skin, and the boy would sigh happily and lean back in Hikaru's arms. Other men on whatever ship they were working on always tried to steal Pavel out from under him, though, so they kept moving from ship to ship, just the two of them, their sword, and their telescope. 

Within two years they were in the Indian Ocean, and like every other pirate there, ended up in Zanzibar.    



	7. Nine: A Daring Night-time Rescue

**Nine: A Daring Night-time Rescue**

Pavel wasn't far. 

They looked across the Garden, across the market, at the House of Wonders looming up at them – three stories high, and the length of twenty of Gaila's apartments across. 

“How in the...?” Nyota hadn't been able to formulate much of a sentence since Sulu had pointed the Governor's palace as the place Pavel's kidnappers had taken him. It hadn't even occurred to her that the huge building dominating the Garden was someone's _house_. “This is... this is...”

“It's _not_ hopeless,” Jimmy said. “Nothing's hopeless. We can do this.” 

“You were the one who was going to come back later,” Nyota pointed out. 

“Yes, I was. I have moments of selfish pessimism, I'm allowed. But, Sulu won't do anything unless we get Pavel out, so we may as well do it now. At least we have the cover of night?”

They crept along the outskirts of the market so as not to draw attention to themselves, and then along the back of the Omani military fort – filled, of course, with the Governor's own guards. 

“Have either of you been in there before?” Nyota asked. They crouched on the side of the stone fort, hiding in the shadows. 

“No,” Jimmy said, as Sulu shook his head. 

“He was taken in... there,” Sulu said in thickly accented English, pointing at the rear of the House, where a set of forbidding Persian-style doors with iron spikes sticking out sat locked. 

“I have an idea,” Nyota said, looking up at the wall of the fort. It was built out of raw stone, with many dimples and divots in the wall. She grinned, and started climbing it. 

“You must be joking,” Jimmy said, watching her very slowly climb the wall, scraping her knuckles. “This is a _military_ _fort_ , they didn't build it to be climbed!” 

Sulu started climbing as well, smiling at Jimmy's groan. 

“What's the matter, captain?” Nyota asked. “Haven't you ever climbed a tree before?”

“Of course I have, I just...” Jimmy looked up at her. “Did you just call me captain?”

“Are you going to stop complaining and help us?” 

Jimmy shrugged. “Sure.”

“Then yes, I did. Keep an eye out in case anybody sees us.” 

Jimmy beamed, and started climbing, glancing up and down the narrow streets. 

It was a hard climb, the rough stone cutting their hands and providing very tiny footholds. For all his protesting, Jimmy got to the top of the fort first, offering Nyota and then Sulu a hand up. 

The top of the fort had two turrets on one end, guard houses. The pirates dropped down, lying flat on the grassy, uneven stone roof, listening for guards. 

There were two men in one of the turrets – visiting each other while working, apparently – but they were deep in conversation and hadn't noticed their guests. 

“Are you sure they didn't just take him here?” Nyota whispered. “The Governor keeps most of the slaves in the fort, the ones that are going out to the clove plantations.”

“How do you know so much about slaves?” Jimmy asked. Nyota stared at him, tight lipped, until he got the picture. “Oh. Well, Pavel's a good looking kid. The Governor wouldn't let him loose with a bunch of other slaves in a place like this.” 

Sulu nodded vigourously. “Pavel, went _there_ ,” he pointed at the green and white terraced House of Wonders. 

“All right,” Nyota nodded. She started picking her way across the roof, crawling on her belly, close to the other two. 

There was only about a metre between the eastern wall of the fort and the House of Wonders. Nyota clambered onto the edge of the roof, reaching out experimentally. 

“Uhura, wait,” Jimmy said, pulling her back by her arm. “We need a plan first. We should split up, just in case, and we need an escape route.” 

“Well if we split up, how do we know to escape?” Nyota asked. 

“A time limit,” Jimmy glanced out to the west. The sun had already set and the light was fading. “It's going to be completely dark soon. If we want to get back out to the boat, we should be fast. Maybe half an hour?”

Nyota nodded. “Half an hour. I think we should go out the back way, if we're on the ground floor, and slip through the alleys.”

Jimmy looked worried. “We'll get lost. We should stick to the beach.”

“The beach is too wide open.” Nyota bit her lip. “Let's go through the alleys. I know my way around, we won't get lost.”

Sulu was getting impatient. He muttered something under his breath, glanced over his shoulders, and then stood up. 

“ What are you--” Jimmy hissed, but then Sulu took a running start, and leaped across the way to land with a tinny _clunk_ on the uppermost, green roof of the House of Wonders. He slid down a little ways, and then swung himself onto the top terrace.

“Jesus!” Jimmy spat. “Sulu! You can't just leap onto people's houses, they'll catch you!” 

“Ssshhhh!” Nyota hissed, standing up herself. Before Jimmy could grab her arm and stop her, she took her own running start and leaped into the air, her heart thumping. She curled her legs up and screwed her eyes shut, and barreled into something warm and soft. She opened her eyes to find that Sulu had caught her, and absorbed her weight before lowering her to the floor of the terrace. 

She breathed in a sigh of relief, and went to thank Sulu, only to find him learning out the terrace beckoning at a frowning Jim Kirk on the top of the fort across the way. 

“If I'm the captain,” Jimmy whispered loudly, even as he backed up to take his running start, “then you guys should wait until I say to jump!” 

He leaped then, clumsy and heavy, and Sulu caught his hands. Jimmy cursed as he swung below the railing. Nyota bent down and grabbed onto his arms, and pulled him up onto the terrace with Sulu. 

“ _Aaaasante,_ ” Jimmy said as he scrambled over the railing. 

Sulu grinned, patting Jimmy on the back. “ _Karibu_ ,” he replied, and the two of them speaking to each other in Kiswahili sounded hilarious to Nyota. 

She started untwisting the _kanga_ she wore around her chest. “You guys should get up on that roof,” she said. “I can probably blend in as a servant, I'll look around.” She pulled the _kanga_ down over her head, draping it over her shoulders, showing her face but covering everything else. 

Jimmy and Sulu were staring at her, Jimmy in particular. “Okay?!” she asked. 

Jimmy blinked, and Sulu beamed. “Okay, yeah,” Jimmy said. “On the roof, right,” he stood up on the railing and pulled himself up onto the roof.

“This house should have a courtyard,” Nyota whispered as he clambered up, followed by Sulu. “Let's find it first before we look anywhere else.”

“ _Poa kichezi_ !” Jimmy said. 

To their credit, she didn't hear their footfalls as they crawled along the roof, though she heard them whispering to each other occasionally. She walked softly as well, her hands folded under her _kanga_ , her face forward but her eyes taking in every door, the way she learned to watch on that horrible slave march from her home. She lowered her face as an older woman passed, dressed head to toe in black and her face covered, jewelry glinting even underneath the fabric. 

“ _Shikamoo_ ,” Nyota said very, very softly, hoping it would be appropriate and it wasn't readily apparently that she didn't belong in this fancy house. 

“ _Marahaba_ ,” the woman replied dismissively, passing her by. Nyota heaved a sigh of relief, and slowed her walk as she turned a corner and came to an open area on her left. 

“You guys,” she whispered, a little louder. “Here it is.” 

The house opened up onto a courtyard, full of tall palm trees and lots and lots of flowers. 

There were plenty of people in the courtyard, in a sort of post-dinner gathering. The Governor himself, recognizable from his European style of dress, sat smoking a hookah with other men. 

Nyota looked up at the terrace roof. Jimmy and Sulu peered down over the edge of the roof. 

Sulu whispered in his own tongue, his brow furrowed and his eyes looking anxious, pointing down into the courtyard. 

By himself, sitting among some of the flowers, was a young boy. He wasn't instantly recognizable to Nyota as a boy, because he was wearing a blue and purple _kanga_ wrapped around his slim hips, and another draped over his head and shoulders much like the one Nyota was wearing. 

Pavel was chewing lazily on a leaf, lounging carelessly and stroking a bright white flower he held in one hand, murmuring to himself. 

“Okay, here's what we're going to do,” Jimmy whispered. 

Sulu muttered something dismissively, swinging down onto the terrace rail, and then shimmying down three stories of the courtyard wall, as fast as a cheetah. 

“Jesus,” Jimmy said, clumsily hoisting himself down to the terrace. “This guy's insane. I mean it's great in a raid, but sometimes...” he trailed off as Sulu hit the courtyard floor, and drew his sword. Guards were instantly upon him. “Well I guess we should go help him,” Jimmy said, as he swung a leg over the terrace rail. 

Nyota climbed down after Jimmy, a little unsure of herself. She couldn't help in a fight like this, she realized, and it was probably a little stupid to have gotten involved. These men were big, and burly, surely the type of guard Nero would be surrounded by, and she was a skinny, frail girl. How was she supposed to help anyone, much less kill a notorious slave from another world? 

Jimmy landed on the ground, and as a guard rushed towards him, Jimmy rose up and gave the guard a hard, crass punch in the face.

Sulu was fighting off four guards, his swords clashing against theirs. He caught Nyota's eye briefly, and turned and dove in the direction opposite of Pavel, taking the guards' attention away. 

The Governor's guests were staring in a sort of blank amusement, like this was some sort of planned entertainment. The Governor, for his part, was sputtering and shouting now, demanding that the guards take care of this. 

Pavel was oblivious to it all, stroking the petals of his flower lovingly. Nyota crept up alongside him. “Pavel?”

He turned to her, eyes wide and glassy. “Oh, _mambo vipi,_ ” he said softly. His hand reached out and gently stroked her soft red kanga. 

She smiled sadly at him. “Come on sweetheart, we have to go,” she pulled him up into a sitting position. He was drooling and resistant. She stuck a finger in his mouth and spooned out the leaf he was chewing on, despite his “mrrmph” of protest. It was _qat_ , she realized as she wiped it off on her skirt, and she'd be a hypocrite to say she'd never partaken of the leaf herself, even if it wasn't this potent, sitting with Gaila on the beach as the sun rose after a hard night of work. 

But it was going to make escape a little bit difficult. 

She hoisted Pavel up alongside her, and he lolled, taking very hesitant and unsteady steps. He murmured again, questioningly, saying Hikaru's name. “He's here, honey, but we have to go,” Nyota said. 

Sulu and Jimmy were winning their fight – barely – the two of them standing back to back, turning and swirling around each other as the guards attacked, like they knew every move the other would make. Sulu swung his sword, and thrust, and Nyota realized he wasn't aiming to injure to maim – although he could, easily. 

Jimmy, for his part, was all fists and feet and daring, stupid attacks. His face was already bloody. 

“ _Basi_!” a guard appeared in front of her, hands outstretched. “Put him down! I don't want to have to cut a woman's throat.” 

Pavel laughed and wiggled at her side, reaching out to touch the guard's rough robes. The guard was huge and mean-looking, but he wasn't willing to hurt Pavel. 

Nyota thought fast. She shoved Pavel into the guard's belly, catching him off guard – and in a low, sweeping move she snatched the cutlass out of the guard's sash. 

She waved it around in front of his wave, hoping she looked more dangerous than she felt. She must look immensely silly, she thought, this tiny, skinny woman covered head to toe in flowing cloth, swing a cutlass like she knew what she was doing. 

It worked, if only for a second, and in that second she grabbed Pavel's arm and yanked him back to her side. The boy cried out “ai!” but fell against her, too muddled to do much else. 

The guard moved towards her and Nyota clumsily swung the cutlass down on his forearm, slicing it open. The guard cried out and clutched his wound. Sulu might be careful not to hurt anybody he didn't have to, but Nyota didn't care for that. “I'm running out of patience for slavers,” she said, her voice shaky. 

Sulu saw that she had Pavel and called out to him. Pavel called back, slurring his name, and Sulu brought the butt of his sword down on the head of the guard he had been fighting. The Governor was long gone by now, but that probably meant more guards were on their way – particularly the soldiers from the next door fort. 

Sulu rushed over and lifted Pavel over his shoulder. The wide, thick doors they had seen locked from the outside opened then, and in some soldiers rushed. 

Sulu didn't even hesitate. He stepped forward and started slashing at anybody in his way. Nyota's clenched her jaw, trying not to breathe in the scent of blood as she stayed close behind Sulu, blindly slashing out at anybody who got to close to her. 

Jimmy ran up beside her, grabbing her right hand in his. “ _Sayonara_ motherfuckers!” he shouted as they pushed their way out of the House of Wonders. 

The alleys were crowded now – everybody heading home from the night market – and Jimmy used to that to their advantage. He pushed out in front and burst into the crowd, creating space for them to follow. The guards spilled out after, shouting and pushing people out of the way. 

“Come on!” Jimmy called out, running blindly through an alley.

“Wait!” Nyota sped up to catch up with him. “This way!” she led them to the left, then the right, weaving a pattern through Stonetown, her headwrap billowing around her and the bloody cutlass still in her hand. 

They passed by the cathedral, the chaos behind them quieter now. “Stop, let's stop,” Jimmy said, panting. Pavel was squirming and whining on Sulu's shoulder, confused. 

“No, no stopping,” Nyota said. She was panting too, and shaking. She looked over at Sulu, who was splattered with blood, and down at her hands. “We can't stop. Let's go.” 

She took them down several more alleys, twisting and turning, panting and shaking, until finally they spilled out onto the beach where the little dhow was resting. They splashed into the water and climbed aboard the boat. Pavel was still confused, but he was happy to be on the boat at least, flopping over into Bones' arms and murmuring “ _ya tebya lyublyu!_ ”

“Come on, kid,” Bones grumbled, setting Pavel down on the deck of the boat, looking in his eyes and checking his pulse. Sulu hovered nearby, which left Nyota the only one to answer Jimmy's commands. She ripped off the _kanga_ she had draped over her head and shoulders, and left it and the bloody cutlass on one of the benches, away from Pavel. 

“Raise the sail!” Jimmy shouted. “Here, Uhura, pull this rope,” he tossed her a thick rope, and she scrambled across the hull of the little dhow, stepping over the two men huddling around Pavel. 

The sail filled with wind and they sped away from the shore, just as the Governor's guards rushed onto the sand. 

“Just in time,” Nyota whispered. 

“Well,” Jimmy said, from where he was straining against his own rope, keeping the sail at the correct angle. “I guess that's it for us and Stonetown.”

“What, why?” Nyota asked. “What do you mean?”

“It was one thing to just steal from nobodies,” Jimmy said. “We just liberated a slave from the _Governor_ , we can't go back there.” 

Nyota cursed, walking down the narrow ledge of the hull, to tie her rope down. 

“Well it was bound to happen sooner or later,” Jimmy said. “I mean not this _specifically_ , but getting caught. And if it wasn't the Governor it would just have been Spock.” 

Nyota shook her head, staring down at the dark water. “No. I mean. Gaila.” 

Jimmy was quiet for a moment. “Oh,” he said. Then: “What happened to your clothes? This is the second time.” 

She looked up at him, and it was clear he was trying not to stare at her bare breasts. She looked down at her _kanga_ on the bench, and the cutlass, the blood looking black in the night. She looked at her blood-stained hands. She untied her ponytail, taking out the pin she kept her hair tucked down with. She shook out her hair, which despite being under the headwrap, also had blood in it. 

“I need to take a swim,” she said, and she flopped over into the ocean. 


	8. Ten: Prison Island

**Ten: Prison Island**

Nyota lay on the bench on the port side at the bow of the little boat, letting her hair fall down and dry out as the sun rose. She hadn't spoken to anybody since her swim, and the dhow coasted on the water in silence as dawn broke. The breeze was gentle and the boat sailed lazily. 

Pavel was sitting on the wraparound bench across from her, tucked between Sulu's legs. He was still blissed out from the _qat_ , slowly getting his wits back. He would reach out and touch Sulu's face in wonderment, stroking his cheeks gently, and then smile and laugh to himself. Sulu watched him patiently, his sad, dark eyes squinting into the sunlight as the day got brighter. He put his arms around Pavel's shoulder's protectively. 

Nyota watched them for a while, feeling a hard kind of loneliness and jealousy in the pit of her stomach. She frowned, turned her face into the sun and shut her eyes. Over and over again she saw the cutlass slicing into that man's arm, and felt the resistance of the weapon against her hand. She took a deep breath and tried to forget about it. 

It was quiet, as dawns usually are, and the dhow bobbed up and down on the gentle waves, which lapped against the hull in a soothing rhythm. 

Jimmy and Bones sat together at the stern in the boat, Jimmy keeping one hand on the rudder, steering the dhow in a wide circle – they went south upon their escape from Stonetown, and were turning around in Menai Bay now, to go back up to the Strait and intercept Nero's ship. 

Well that was Jimmy's plan anyway, and even though Nyota was dozing off in the sunlight, she could hear Bones grumbling away about it. 

She was just starting to dream about Ngorongoro Crater, and shearing sheep with her sister, when Pavel cried out in glee and rushed over to her side of the dhow. Nyota was startled awake, and she grabbed at the hull. 

“Look, Hikaru, delfin!” Pavel shouted, pointing at the sea beside them in a very thick and and syrupy accent. “Look, look!” 

Sulu came over, wrapping his arms around the boy and pushing a kiss into his hair. Pavel wriggled out from the embrace and pulled Sulu by his arm to lean over the hull, cooing excitedly at the dolphins that were swimming alongside the boat, poking their dorsal fins out of the water. 

Sulu nudged Pavel and said something short and sharp. Pavel looked up sheepishly at Nyota. 

“Hello, I am Pavel Andreivich,” he said, holding out his hand. 

Nyota grinned, and took his hand in greeting. “Hello,” she said. “I'm Nyota Uhura.” 

The boy beamed. “Thank you very much for help to rescue,” he said. Sulu put his arm around Pavel's waist and murmured quietly again. “And Hikaru say thank you too,” Pavel continued. He leaned forward and kissed Nyota once on each cheek. 

Nyota smiled, and swept her hair back into a ponytail as Pavel leaned over the hull again to watch the dolphins. The sun was already starting to get hotter against their skin. Pavel still wore one of the blue and purple _kangas_ around his waist, the other lay on the deck of the boat. Sulu picked it up and draped it around Pavel's head and shoulders, keeping the sun off his skin. 

Jimmy came up and plopped down on the bench next to Nyota. 

“So. Nyota,” he said, smiling wickedly. 

“It's still Uhura to you, _Jimmy_ ,” she replied. 

Jimmy feigned hurt. “Whatever happened to 'captain''?” he asked. 

Nyota rolled her eyes, but didn't bother to hide her smile. She put her elbows on the side of the hull and watched the dolphins keep pace with the dhow. 

“You can see when they're gonna come up,” Jimmy said. “Here they come!” 

And two of the dolphins broke the surface of the water, one of them blowing its blowhole, spraying water into the air. Pavel laughed with delight. 

“So what's the plan?” Nyota said bluntly, turning to look at Jimmy.   
  
“What?”

“The plan with Nero,” she said. 

Jimmy bit his lip. “I'm not sure yet. I mean, what edge do we have besides running on board and beating everyone up?” 

Nyota shifted uncomfortably. She shook her head. “I don't know if I could help, really, with beating everyone up. If that is, in fact, your plan.”

Jimmy made a face. “You could help. You cut that guy at the House of Wonders. Almost sliced his arm right off!” 

Nyota felt sick for a moment. She looked down at her hands, and at the cutlass which still lay beside her on the bench. “I don't think I could do that again,” she said. 

“Why not? Sulu can show you some moves, and --” 

“Jimmy if the girl doesn't want to fight, don't make her fight,” Bones called from where he was sitting by the rudder. 

“I want to fight, I do,” Nyota insisted. “I want to help at least. And if we... if it's Nero, I want to do it. I feel weird about hurting anybody else, but if it's Nero,” she swallowed a lump in her throat. “I want to kill Nero.”

“Lady, we all want to kill Nero,” Jimmy said.

“Yes but I don't want _anything_ else,” Nyota said. “Any treasure they have, or whatever you pirates do, I don't care about any of it. I'll help you any way I can, all I want is to be there when he dies.” 

Jimmy smiled slowly. “Well,” he said. “The only plan I have right now is, frankly, to run on board there and beat everyone up. So to help, in any way you can, you're gonna have to hurt people like you did back in town,” he looked at her sympathetically while she stared down at her cutlass, mulling it over. “Do you speak any Romulan?” he asked.   
  
“No.”

“Why not? You speak everything else.” 

“No I don't,” Nyota insisted. “I don't speak... whatever that is,” she gestured at Sulu and Pavel, who were now murmuring to each other in their secret code, searching underneath the benches until Pavel pulled out a crumpled, parchment map. “And it's not like I met a lot of star-men to practice on.” She paused. “Gaila never wanted to help me practice.” 

Jimmy made a _hmm_ sound. “Well I don't know how that would've helped us anyway, to be honest. I think we only have one option here.” 

“ Ship, Jim Kirk,” Pavel said. He was pointing into the distance off the starboard side of the dhow. 

Jimmy stood up, brow furrowed. “Oh fuck!” he said. “There it is!” 

A blackish, two-masted tallship was slowly turning on the waves, about six miles away. 

Nyota came to join him at the starboard side. A fast wind was blowing and the dhow skittered along, speeding towards the black ship. 

“Is that it?” Nyota asked, realizing she had never actually seen Nero's ship.  

“I'm not sure,” Jimmy said. “It's been a while since. It's definitely the ship we were tracking yesterday, though, isn't it Bones?” 

Bones sat stony faced, the wind whipping through his hair, and he said nothing. 

“I'd love to get my hands on a ship like that,” Jimmy said as he gathered up ropes to pull the sail in, catching the wind at an optimal angle. Nyota scrambled up to help him. “We could get back to America in a few months in that thing, couldn't we, Bones? You guys could all come with us.” 

Nyota glanced back at Bones, who still hadn't spoken. His mouth was set into a tight line as he stared at the black ship they were rapidly approaching. 

“Bones, you're starting to freak me out,” she said, smiling. 

“Sorry darlin,” Bones said softly. He looked down at the rudder, and pushed at it. The dhow turned to the right. They curved around behind the big black ship, gaining speed. 

Pavel held up his crumpled, parchment map to Jimmy, and pointed at a tiny dot off the west coast of Zanzibar. Jimmy nodded. The black ship was headed towards Prison Island, a traditional holding pen for slaves when there were too many to unload in Stonetown.   
  
“Remember guys,” Jimmy said as the ship got closer and closer before them. They were directly behind it, and Bones was ready to turn the dhow sharply to the starboard side of the tall black ship, essentially popping out of nowhere. “Only hit the star-men. Tattooed faces, white skin. Anybody else, we're here to help.”

Pavel rolled up his map, clutching it and his little telescope worryingly, as he murmured a translation to Sulu. Sulu smiled at him reassuringly, touching the boy's chin. 

Nyota swallowed a wave of nausea, looking down at the cutlass she held unsteadily in her hands. 

“You ready Uhura?” Jimmy asked over the rush of the wind. 

She nodded, slowly. “Yeah,” she said, if only to convince herself. “I'm ready.” 

Suddenly, cannon fire rang out over the ocean. The dhow shot out on the starboard side of the tall black ship, jerking over choppy waves while they all gripped the sides of the hull. They all ducked and looked out to see an even bigger, far more majestic ship behind their prey. 

The _HMS Enterprise_. 

“ Oh shiiit!” Jimmy shouted. “It's that motherfucker Spock! Get us the hell out of here! Turn around!” he scrambled around frantically, trying to turn the sail, but the wind was too fast and the waves, between two great ships, were too choppy. 

The _Enterprise_ shot more cannons, a few of them landing on the big black ship, which responded in kind. Other cannonballs landed in the water frighteningly close to the dhow, causing huge splashes. 

Sulu pushed Pavel down to the deck of the boat and underneath the benches, and then rushed to Nyota's side. 

“ Hey wait!” she protested, but he pushed her down anyway, shouting in Nipponese. Once she was tucked underneath the bench, he went to Bones' side and helped him pull at the rudder, trying to turn the dhow and keep from capsizing in the frantic waters between two great ships. 

Bones was yelling through the wind, and was still barely audible over the cannon fire. “Fine work Jimbo!” he yelled. “If you had just thought about this plan for one second like I had said, we wouldn't all be about to die here in the middle of goddamn nowhere!” 

“Shut up!” Jimmy yelled back, trying in vain to keep a grip on the sail ropes as the wind whipped around him. “We're not going to die like this! James Tiberius Kirk is not going to die like this!” 

The wind wrenched the rope out of Jimmy's hands and he cried out as his palms were burned. Nyota rolled out from under the benches and went to his side, grabbing the rope before the sail turned inside out completely. 

“Thanks,” Jimmy said sheepishly when she brought the rope back to him. 

“Don't mention it,” she said, and they pulled on the rope in tandem to try to get the sail straightened out. 

“Fuck it,” Jimmy shouted. “Straight on guys, we're going to Prison Island. We're just gonna have to ride this one out.” 

Cannon fire continued above them, and cannon balls fell around them. Bones and Sulu tried to steer the dhow around the falling stones as best they could, but it was a game of chance, really. 

At this point clouds were visible in the distance – a big rain was coming in, and the wind was getting worse. The sail filled up, in the wrong direction, and the wind in it was so strong it nearly lifted both Nyota and Jimmy on the rope. 

Jimmy cursed and Nyota grit her teeth, slamming her feet against the hull and leaning all her weight down towards the deck of the dhow, trying to be as heavy as possible. She felt skinny arms wrap around her waist, and Pavel was behind her, calling something out against the wind. 

The three of them eventually grappled with the sail and brought it around to the proper side of the mast. Suddenly they were shooting forward, speeding through the narrowing gap between the two great, warring ships, towards the white beach of Prison Island. 

\--

The rainfall was in full force when Commander Spock finished his conquest of the slaving ship. Huge, fat drops slammed down on them, on the choppy water on the shore, and on the beach and trees of Prison Island. 

The ship they had intercepted had, upon closer inspection, not been the _Narada_ , but it opened fire on the _Enterprise_ first, prompting Spock to believe it was a ship of pirates. Pirates who had also taken slaves. They unloaded the slaves on Prison Island, with the understanding that they would be returned to the mainland, and the pirates of the black ship were held in the brig of the _Enterprise_. 

Which left the matter of the little dhow that had cruised through the sea battle, captained by another known pirate, James Kirk. 

Kirk and his crew stood defiantly on the white beach, barely clothed and drenched in rainwater. 

“ We didn't have anything to do with them, you dumb beetle-head,” Kirk spat out as Commander Spock and Mister Scott approached them.    
  
“And yet you were sailing in the direct vicinity, and only appeared when it became clear that ship was going to lose it's battle,” Commander Spock. “What a curious coincidence.”

Kirk sighed heavily and rolled his eyes. “Look, we have a right to sail 'round these waters same as anyone else. We're going to leave this wretched little island as soon as the storm passes, and you can't stop us.” 

Spock regarded Kirk for a moment. He was a perplexing creature, all raw, unthinking emotion, and he was always appearing at the most suspicious times. 

Spock looked down the line of Kirk's crew. “You have a new recruit, it seems,” he said, walking over to the  woman who stood with her arms crossed. 

She looked him up and down and said nothing.  
  
“Good afternoon, Madam,” Commander Spock said to her. “If you have been captured by these pirates, it would be our honour to escort you back to Zanzibar City unscathed.”

“Over my dead body,” she said.   
  
“Madam?”

“You're a star-man,” she said, with malice in her voice. “I don't trust star-men.” 

Commander Spock nodded minutely. “I assure you, Madam, that not all star-men are the same.” 

She snorted. It didn't diminish her sharp-featured beauty. Her long, straight hair fell to her shoulders, and Spock noticed, curiously, how symmetrical and pleasing her face was. 

“There is nothing to prove you're not just like Nero,” she said. 

Commander Spock blinked. He hadn't expected anyone to make such a comparison, and his back stiffened slightly. “Perhaps not. But, as I have said, not all star-men are the same. I have no intention of keeping any of you detained. You're free to go.” 

“Yeah, thanks, not that we needed your permission,” Kirk spat. “Come on guys.” He stalked off down the beach. 

The w oman lingered a little while, keeping her gaze on Spock's eyes. Then she turned and followed.  
  
“Well that was an interesting development,” Mister Scott said. “Why didn't you just take them with the other pirates?”

Commander Spock, his head tilted, watched the little band of troublemakers pile back into their tiny boat. “I believe, Mister Scott, that a more unorthodox approach might be beneficial to our task.”   



	9. Eleven: Paje Beach

**Eleven: Paje Beach**

  
“Ugh I hate him!” Nyota cried. The storm had passed and the sea had calmed, and they pushed the little dhow out into the water again. The air was mostly still now, and the boat drifted very slowly southward. “What a smug bastard!”

“Well,” Bones said, as he examined a scrape on Pavel's knee while Sulu hovered around them. “He did free all those poor slaves.” 

“He _said_ he'd free them,” Nyota corrected him. “Star-men lie. _All_ men li--” she glanced around at the four of them, Bones smirking and Pavel looking at her expectantly, and then she sighed, resting her elbow on the hull and her head on her hand. “I just don't understand, if star-men have all these great things, like their weapons, that they can't just stop people like Nero.”

“Don't forget their ships,” Jimmy said, piling rope into one corner of the boat by the stern. White bandages were wrapped around his hands from where the rope had ripped his skin, and between them and his bruised face from Pavel's rescue, he was looking worse for wear. “They have aether -ships too, like the _Enterprise_.”  
  
“ What, that smug star-man's boat?” Nyota asked. “It flies?”

“Oh, it flies,” Jimmy said. “I've never seen it do it, though, but I believe it, you can see on the mast where the balloons inflate. And I've _heard_ it can also go into the aether, and fly in space.” He sighed wistfully. “God I want that boat.”

Bones snorted. “As if you'd know what to do with it.” 

Jimmy opened his mouth to retort, but Pavel interrupted him. “Can we soon stop, Jim Kirk?” he asked. “I am hungry.” 

Jimmy rubbed his face. “Yeah, I know a place we can hide out. Would probably be wise to rest for a few days.”   
  
“ I need to go back to Stonetown,” Nyota said. “Gaila's probably worried sick.”  
  
“You can't,” Jimmy said, pulling at the rudder. The dhow sailed southward. “It's too soon from the House of Wonders debacle.”  
  
“But I--”  
  
“Look I'm not saying it to be a jerk, okay?” Jimmy interrupted her. “You don't think I want to go see Gaila too? You don't think I feel like shit because of it? It's too dangerous, and somebody's gotta put their foot down.”

There was an awkward silence on the dhow then. Bones got up and went to sit at the stern with Jimmy, patting his knee. Jimmy sighed and laid his battered head on the rudder. 

_He just wants to get home_ , Nyota thought wistfully, her chin in her hands. She looked over at Pavel and Sulu, sitting close together on one of the benches, Pavel resting his head against Sulu's shoulder. _We're all just trying to get home, in a way, I guess._

She realized she had been thinking in a mix of Kiswahili and English ( _Swahinglish_ , Jimmy cheerfully called it), and hadn't had a thought in Datooga for a very long time. She felt a pang of loneliness and curled up on herself, thinking about Gaila, and wondering what it was like to be so far from home that you could see its star in the sky among a million others. 

\--

Paje beach, on the eastern shore of the southern island of Zanzibar, was long and pristine and mostly deserted. The water here was a very vibrant blue, and deep enough that when they arrived they anchored the dhow a few meters from the beach and swam in. 

The sand was different from the western side of the island, powdery and fine and as soft as flour. They all slept on the beach at first, arriving when the sun was setting and taking turns on watch. It was warm enough that they didn't need a fire, but chilly enough to warrant sleeping close together. 

Nyota hadn't slept so close to a man before, not since the horrible days of her march from Ngorongoro Crater. She, surprisingly, did not feel particularly uncomfortable, and settled in between Pavel and Bones when it was her turn to sleep. 

They spent a few days resting on that shore, eating fruit from the trees. Sulu and Jimmy paddled out to the anchored dhow on the first day, with a spear Sulu had carved from a large piece of driftwood. Jimmy took him out a little ways from the shore and Sulu speared a youngish tuna fish, and they ate very well. 

They talked about what they would do after they got rid of Nero, and after they theoretically moved up to a bigger ship, and bigger treasures. Well mostly Jimmy talked. He would liberate all the slaves, he said, and all of them together would be unstoppable. And then he would sail into space and explore, starting with the moon, claiming it for the United States. He acted out his adventures there, with Sulu playing the role of the Moon King, waving his sheathed sword about in defiance.

Pavel frowned, trying to open a passionfruit carefully. “This is silly,” he said. “You cannot walk around on moon like normal person.”

Jimmy, laughing from his spar with Sulu, flopped down into the flour fine sand and rolled over to look at Pavel. “Yes you can,” he said. “I read it in an adventure serial in the Boston Gazette.” 

Pavel wrinkled his nose and shook his head, despite probably not knowing what half of that sentence meant. “You are silly, Jim Kirk,” he said. “You cannot walk around like normal, there is fewer gravity.” He scowled at Jimmy's blank expression. “Gravity! Is Russian discovery, very important.” 

Nyota smiled, from where she was sitting further down the beach with Bones. The two of them stuck together mostly, sitting quietly or exchanging little, unimportant stories about their homes and families. 

Paje beach wasn't far from villages, two or three were within walking distance up and down the beach, and occasionally people would come walking by lazily. They greeted the locals when necessary, Nyota mostly doing the talking. She gathered a little bit of money from each of the other pirates, and went up to one of the villages to buy dried fish and fruit and seaweed, and fill canteens with fresh water from their well. This village was so small, and quiet, and full of children who came to talk to her that her heart ached for Ngorongoro Crater, for her father, and her sister. 

_Soon_ , she soothed herself. _Soon_. 

Every morning, during that week they spent lounging on Paje beach, Sulu taught Nyota how to fight with her cutlass. He pushed her into position, kicking her legs apart, and nudging her arms into the right positions. He made her run through kata after kata, turning, and thrusting. Pavel would watch them and sometimes Sulu would enlist Jimmy to help spar with Nyota. They didn't go easy on her, and every evening Nyota's arms and legs ached, but every morning her thrusts and swings with the cutlass became more confident. 

On the third day, Pavel squinted at his map and declared that they should go to see the monkeys in Jozani Forest. They walked into the mainland, and within an hour were in the thick of the forest, full of dozens of types of trees including palms and baobabs, where wise-faced little colobus monkeys stared out at them from the tree branches. 

Pavel smiled in delight at the monkeys; a long-limbed mother held two babies to her chest and looked at him curiously. “I never thought, as little boy,” he said to Nyota, “that one day I will be in jungle with monkeys in Indian Ocean.” His smile wavered a little bit, and Sulu moved to be closer to him, pulling up his _kanga_ to cover his shoulders, murmuring at him. Pavel said, “Tch. He say I must get proper boy clothes. Nyota, do you think I look silly?” 

“ No, I don't think you look silly,” Nyota said. “It wouldn't hurt to get boy clothes though. We could find some easily in Stonetown, it's a shame we can't go back just yet.” 

Pavel nodded gravely, pulling the _kanga_ tighter over his head. “I do not like Stone Town,” he said.  
  
“Why not?”

He shrugged. “Those men catch me when I get lost. I never get lost before.” 

“It's not your fault. I still get lost in Stonetown sometimes,” Nyota said softly. It was strange, being homesick for two places at once. 

They walked further to find Jimmy pressing Bones up against a tree, kissing him fiercely. The three of them stopped short, not particularly shocked but not sure what to do. 

Bones stiffened when they walked up and pushed Jimmy off him, crossing his arms, as if he hadn't been enjoying it. 

“Hey guys,” Jimmy said nonchalantly. “What's going on?” Bones huffed and stalked off. 

“You're good for Jimmy,” Nyota said to Bones later, as they washed off the sweat of their monkey forest walk by floating in the ocean before the sun set. 

“I suppose so,” Bones said. “I mean he'd be dead by now if somebody wasn't watching out for him, so I suppose I have no choice.” 

Nyota smiled into the water. She remembered her father saying similar things, a long time ago.   
  
“Are you sure you know what you're doing with Nero?” Bones said softly after a long pause. “With your plan? Are you sure you're up for it?"  
  
“Yes,” she said.   
  
“He has a lot of enemies,” Bones said. “Eventually someone is going to kill him.”  
  
“Yes. I want it to be me.”

Bones sighed sadly. “It's just... sometimes, in the heat of the moment, it's very easy to make mistakes. And there can be far reaching consequences.” 

Nyota leaned her head back, letting her the water lap at her scalp. “I appreciate what you're trying to do,” she said. “But it's been months since he killed my sister. It's hardly the heat of the moment and I have never stopped wanting to kill him. And anyways...” she hesitated. “I don't have any other family, besides our father, who I might not be able to see again. I don't have anybody depending on me, or any friends, really.” 

Bones raised his eyebrow at her. “I'm not so sure about that.” 

She didn't respond, looking sadly at the horizon, letting herself bob up and down in the water. 

“There's nothing I can say to change your mind,” Bones said. 

“No.” 

He sighed again, and she turned in the water to look at him. “Did it at least feel good,” she asked, “when you did it?”

Bones thought about it for a second. “Yes, it felt good,” he said. “But it didn't bring my father back.” 

\--

Their last night at Paje beach, they slept in the dhow, as the tide was coming in strong and ate up most of the beach. The dhow rocked gently on the water, and they shared a big watermelon Nyota had bought at the village. 

They sat in companionable silence, the men draped up against each other and Nyota trying to not feel too lonely. Sulu ran his hands through Pavel's curls, untangling them, and Nyota sang quietly to herself, weaving a sheath for her cutlass from palm fronds. 

“That is very pretty song, Nyota,” Pavel said sleepily. 

She blinked at him in surprise. “ _Asante sana_ ,” she said.

Jimmy sputtered, his mouth crammed with watermelon, trying to get attention. “That's what I said!” he cried around a mouthful of mush. “You didn't listen to me, when I said you could sing.” 

“Well,” Nyota tried to shrug it off, embarrassed. “It doesn't matter.” 

“Yes it does,” Jimmy said, having finally swallowed his watermelon. “You're a catch, Nyota Uhura, and I don't think it's just me who noticed that Spock had his eye on you.” 

“What.” 

Jimmy nodded, beaming. Bones gave her a sympathetic half-smile. “You should seduce Spock. Seduce the hell out of him and make him give us his boat!” 

Nyota threw her palm-leaf sheath at Jimmy. “That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard,” she said. 


	10. The Mangrove Lagoon at Low Tide

**Twelve: The Mangrove Lagoon at Low Tide**

They set sail the next morning, with a clear sky and a calm sea. 

“May as well try the Strait again,” Jimmy had said, and Pavel had dutifully pointed his little telescope at the horizon to scan for the _Narada_. 

It was a leisurely sail, and when they had cleared the southernmost tip of the island, Jimmy took them up closer to Kiwani Bay, within sight of the fishermen on the shore, just in case the _Enterprise_ or any other government ships were lurking about further seaward. Nyota sat on the hull at the bow of the boat, her cutlass in its palm leaf scabbard tucked into her _kanga_ , letting the wind whip through her hair. 

“No, no. This is wrong. You cannot... we must turn,” Pavel said, clutching the parchment map. 

“What? Why?” Jimmy asked, clearly comfortable with the rapid pace they were setting, and the wind in his face. 

“There is...” Pavel turned and spoke with Sulu in their secret language. They both made a sort of sweeping motion at the sea. “Sea trees, everywhere, sea trees.”

“Sea trees?” Nyota said. “Pavel, are you saying there's mangr-” 

The dhow thudded to a halt, and Nyota tipped over the bow. 

Instead of plunging into water, she landed on hard, scratchy roots. “Aaargh!” she cried. 

“Whoa are you okay?” Jimmy rushed to the front of the now totally immobile dhow. The other men came to peer over the edge. 

Nyota tried to get her bearing – the mangrove roots were sharp and cut her everywhere she touched them. She was lying in about a foot of water, and roots spread out all around her. She slipped trying to get up and scratched herself further. 

She looked up at the men staring down at her from the dhow. “Don't you all rush to help me at once!” she said. Sulu smiled wryly, and reached down to help her. She grabbed onto his forearm and he lifted her out of the sea.

“What was that?” Jimmy asked in disbelief. 

“Mangrove roots. _Sea trees_ ,” Nyota winced, lowering herself onto one of the benches, bleeding all over.  “You sailed us right into a nest of them.”  
  
“Well thank god for that,” said Jimmy. “I thought it was some kind of sea monster.”

Bones snorted, coming over to look at Nyota's cuts and scrapes. “It might as well be a sea monster. You don't happen to have a plan to get us out, do you, _captain_?” 

Pavel looked miserable, looking between his map and at Jimmy, wide-eyed. “I try to say,” he said softly. “Sea trees, in this bay. Map is wrong, is further in sea than I thought...”   
  
“Yeah it's fine Pavel, whatever,” Jimmy said impatiently. He stood at the bow of the boat, trying to shake it free. “You've got to be kidding me,” he muttered, shielding his eyes and looking across the bay to the shore. The tide was out, fishing dhows lay on the bare beach – nobody was going out that day. “Sulu, come on.”

Even Sulu looked doubtful, as he and Jimmy went to the stern of the dhow and tried to rock the rudder free of the roots it was resting on. “We're _getting free_ ,” Jimmy insisted, “if we have to get out and push!” 

Three hours later, they were still sitting in that dhow on top of the mangrove roots. The tide had gone out further, only an inch or so of water remained atop the roots, some of them poked above the surface. The sun was high in the sky, the air was still and they were baking. Everyone else had given up. Jimmy had too, once or twice, until he got himself worked up again and went back to throwing his weight against the sides of the dhow, trying to get it to move in _any_ direction.

He stood in the corner of the stern, tilting back and worth, rocking the dhow slightly. “You know if everybody helped,” he spat, “we'd get it to move.”

“ It would just tip over you idiot!” Bones snarled. “And then what would you do? Walk back to shore on a top of razor-sharp roots?” 

“Does anyone else have any solutions?” Jimmy exploded. 

Nobody responded. Bones and Nyota looked at each other skeptically. Sulu and Pavel were sitting on the deck in the middle of the boat. Pavel was wilting in the hot sun and Sulu was rubbing a cream made from pressed plants onto the boy's back. 

Jimmy huffed loudly, clenching his fits and kicking at the mast of the boat. “We're _stuck_ in the middle of this godforsaken bay on top of a bunch of fucking _sea trees_? Does nobody get how ridiculous this is? And it's hotter than hell today!” He shouted at nobody in particular. He breathed deeply after that and then flopped down on one of the benches. 

“ You feel better?” Bones asked. 

“ _No,_ ” Jimmy retorted, petulantly. “I'm going to die of thirst.” 

“Stop being an infant, we have plenty of water,” Bones said. “We'll just have to wait for the tide to come back in.” 

Jimmy wiggled around, obviously wanting to say something childish but knowing he was beat. He gestured at Sulu and Pavel. “How come you never rub lotion on me?” he gestured at his own sunburned arms. “I'm peeling for fuck's sake!” 

“Well then stay out of the sun, you moron,” Bones sneered. 

“That's a bit impossible right now Bones!” Jimmy shouted. 

“Everybody just calm down!” Nyota raised her voice. She was wilting a little bit in the sun too. “This isn't solving anything. Just take a deep breath.” 

Jimmy did, and it was quiet for a moment.  
  
“I am very sorry everyone,” Pavel said, very softly. “Is my fault.”

Jimmy groaned and covered his face, sprawling out over the bench. “No it isn't Pavel, shut up. It's my fault. I'm the worst captain ever.” 

“Stop it!” Nyota cried. She picked up a canteen from under the bench. “Look, Bones is right, we're gonna be fine. We have plenty of water, and food. We just have to wait for the tide. So what if it's a little hot, it's hot every day.” She passed the canteen around, and everyone took a sip of the water. 

Jimmy sighed a deep sigh, and crossed his arms. But he never said she was right. 

They sat there in the sun, dozing off, when Sulu suddenly scrambled up and, shielding his eyes, looked into the distance. “ _Enterprise_ ,”he said. 

Jimmy shot up. “What!” He looked at where Sulu was staring, and sure enough, in the distance and coming in fast was Commander Spock's ship. “Well this is just great,” he said miserably. 

They had no choice but to sit there and wait as the _Enterprise_ approached, and drop anchor further asea. Then two little rowboats were lowered, and came splashing up. 

Three metres from the dhow, the rowboats came to a stop. In one was Mister Scott, without his hat or jacket, sweating and panting from the paddle over. 

“ Good afternoon!” Scott said, cheerfully. 

“Mister Scott,” Jimmy said civilly. He looked over at the other rowboat, manned by an equally sweaty, skinnier blond man. “English scum,” Jimmy greeted. 

The man scowled and Mister Scott tutted. “Now now James, there's no need for that. This is Lieutenant Kyle, and he's been kind enough to come out here with me. Commander Spock has sent me to invite you on board, as you seem to be in a bit of trouble.”

“Thanks but no thanks,” Jimmy said. “We're fine until the tide comes back in.”   
  
“Och,” Mister Scott said. “That's going to be hours. And you with a lady and a wee one aboard.”

Pavel, wilted though he was, screwed up his face, and Nyota rested her elbows on the hull of the dhow. “What's that supposed to mean?” she asked, dangerously. 

Mister Scott blinked. “Oh, I just mean... well the _Enterprise_ will be much more comfortable for you, I'm sure.”

Nyota just stared at him, until Mister Scott coughed uncomfortably and looked away. 

Jimmy laughed. “You're a dumbass,” he said. “You know she's a pirate, right?”

“ Shut up Jim,” Bones said, elbowing his way beside Jimmy at the side of the boat. “Think about it, you really want to sit out here baking when we could be on the _Enterprise_? As invited guests?”

Jimmy mulled this over, looking down at Scott mischievously. “You are inviting us, right? As guests? No funny business?”

Mister Scott smiled wryly. “Commander Spock wishes to speak to you about the star-man Nero, specifically, he would like to recruit your help in apprehending him.” 

Jimmy's eyes lit up. “Oh really!” He looked sidelong at Nyota, who was as stunned as he was. “So Spock wants us to do his dirty work?”

“ To put it bluntly,” Scott agreed. “At the very least, he would like to discuss it.” 

Jimmy smiled slowly, and then he gestured widely at the others. “Women and children first!” he said cheerfully. 

Pavel scowled again, but he was still a little stung by what had happened with the mangroves, and he stayed quiet. Nyota rolled her eyes, but she and Pavel clambered over the side of the boat, Pavel self consciously pulling his _kanga_ around his head and shoulders. 

Sulu, of course, rushed forward to help Pavel down, and held the boy tight so he wouldn't have to put too much weight on his feet on the rough, scratchy mangroves. Sulu offered his other arm to Nyota, and she accepted it (she wouldn't have if it was Jimmy), using him as support as they very carefully walked the few meters over the prickly roots to Kyle's rowboat. 

Bones and Jimmy followed suit, getting in the boat with Mister Scott. 

And they all went out to the _HMS Enterprise_. 

\--

Lieutenant Kyle led Nyota, Pavel and Sulu to the captain's quarters at the stern of the ship. The ship was huge and well constructed, and the captain's quarters were lavish. There was a front office, which was at least three or four times bigger than their little fishing dhow, and a bedchamber visible through another door. 

Nyota shook her head slightly in wonder at the grandeur in the ship. Commander Spock was writing with a big, poofy feather quill at his desk. He looked up and inclined his head slightly at them as they came in. 

He was just so _stiff_ , Nyota thought to herself. His features were like stone, even down to the smoothness of his pale skin, and his pointed ears added to his general over-intellectual appearance. 

Still, even though his ears were very similar, his entire demeanor was unlike the other star-men, Nyota admitted to herself as she took a seat in front of Spock's desk. Her aching bones, and her cuts and scrapes, all sighed in relief as she sank down onto the relatively soft and luxurious cushioned chair. 

“May I offer you some tea, Madam?” Spock asked. 

Nyota shrugged. “Sure, why not.” 

He poured her a hot, black cup from a delicate tea set sitting on his desk. Pavel went around the room, looking curiously at the maps and the various astrolabes and sextants that were on display near the walls. Sulu kept near Pavel, but his eyes remained on Nyota the whole time, watching her like a hawk. 

“You have experience with the star-man Nero,” Spock said bluntly, as she took a sip.    
  
“Yes.”  
  
“As do I. He was a criminal in Federation space before he was a criminal on Earth.”  
  
“Then why didn't you catch him?"  
  
Spock stiffened slightly. “It is what I believe you would call a difficult situation. He led a rather large terrorist attack on my homeworld, Vulcan.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“Why did he attack your world?” Nyota asked. “Nobody would do something like that for no reason.” 

Spock didn't answer right away, and Nyota's heart sank a little a bit at the idea that somebody _could_ do that for no reason. “It was not a logical attack,” Spock said. “Perhaps in his mind he thought it was logical. He was angry, you could say, at things that Vulcan had done to his world in the past.” 

Nyota twisted her mouth in distaste. Of course.   
  
“In any case,” Spock continued, “the consequent confusion created an opportunity for him to escape. It was a very long time before we learned where he had gone, and now that he is on Earth, I find myself confined by local laws and customs when it comes to apprehending him.”

Nyota waited. “But...” she prompted. 

“However, Madam,” Spock went on. “You and your colleagues are pirates. You are not bound by any law.” 

Nyota scoffed. “Jimmy was right, you want us to do your dirty work.”

“If it helps you reach your goal of stopping Nero, which I believe is a desirable outcome for all of us, I don't think it could be considered _dirty_ work.”

It sounded almost sassy, and Nyota bit her lip to suppress her smile. Since when did star-men have a sense of humour? 

Spock leaned forward, perhaps to whisper slightly and elude Sulu's eavesdropping. “May I compliment your English, Madam,” he said. “You speak it as though you've been speaking it your entire life.” 

Nyota blinked. “Oh, no,” she brushed it off. “Only a few months.”

“That is a remarkable achievement,” Spock said. 

“Not really.”    
  
“It is,” he insisted. “To learn a language so well in such a short time speaks to a very unique talent and intelligence. Do you know any others who speak as many languages as – beautifully – as you do?” Spock suddenly looked a tiny bit discomfited by what he had said. He looked up at the door to his quarters. “Your 'captain' should be arriving soon. I hope he agrees to join in my goal, and I hope you can help me persuade him.”

Nyota shrugged. “As long as I get to kill Nero,” she said. 

“Kill him?”   
  
“Yes.”

Spock tented his fingers, furrowing one brow. “The Federation warrant for his arrest requires bringing him back to Vulcan for a tribunal.”

“A tribunal?” Nyota asked, unfamiliar with the word. “No, no. You're not taking him anywhere. I'm going to kill him.” 

“I'm afraid Madam, that would be a violation of Federation law.” 

“Yes, but I'm a pirate, as you have said, and I live outside the law,” Nyota stood up then, holding her head high. Sulu took a step forward, ready to spring if necessary, and Pavel looked up from the astrolabe he was studying, curiously. 

“Mister Spock,” Nyota said. “The star-man Nero killed my sister. I am going to kill him in return.” 

Spock's mouth tilted downwards ever so slightly. “I believe I understand your desire,” he said. “My mother was among those who died in Nero's attack.” 

The wind was temporarily out of Nyota's sails. Spock, even though his face barely changed, looked damaged and young and broken. It was in his eyes, which were deep and impossibly sad. That little glimpse surrounded by poised, carefully constructed coolness reminded Nyota of someone, but she couldn't quite place who. Not her sister, or her father, or any of the men she sailed with. Who then?  
  
Her throat tightened when she realized it was herself. 

“I am sorry to hear that, Mister Spock,” she said, drawing herself up and imagining how a haughty, powerful star-woman would speak. “But if that is the case, if he has killed both your mother and my sister, and who knows who else, and taken all those people prisoner and sold them as slaves – what difference does it make it he goes home to a _tribunal_ , or if he hangs by his neck? He needs to be stopped, completely. Killing him only makes sense.”

Spock regarded her for a moment. “You are correct, in a certain light,” he conceded. “The logical conclusion, from a particular viewpoint, would be that killing Nero is the most efficient way to solve this problem. He has hurt so many others, after all, and he is only one man.” 

He looked like was on the verge of something major, and Nyota found herself disappointed when Jimmy's voice rang out and the door to the captain's quarters burst open. 

“Get your hands off me,” he wrenched his hand away from Lieutenant Kyle's guiding arm, ignoring the other man's scowl. “I'm here now, let's talk!” Jimmy proclaimed. He looked around the room and gave a low whistle. “Nice digs, Spock.”    
 


	11. The Narada, and, An Amicable Conclusion is Reached

**Thirteen: The _Narada_**

This is what happened. 

The _Enterprise_ engaged the _Narada_ a few miles off the the northwest end of Zanzibar's southern island, near the smaller island Tumbatu. The _Narada_ was visiting villages up in the north, stocking up for what seemed like an overland expedition – probably back into the mainland to start another slave caravan. 

They chased it, and exchanged cannon fire. In a twist of fate, the star-men ended up boarding the _Enterprise_ – incredibly bold, Spock observed, as they knew that he was there on behalf of the Federation,  and that he was out for their arrest.  
  
"It's a pre-emptive strike you beetle-head!” Jimmy had shouted over the roar of cannon fire. “They're trying to kill you!”

Indeed they were, and while the _Enterprise_ and it's ragtag special guests put up a good fight, the star-men managed to phaser Spock into unconsciousness and drag him off. 

The _Narada_ sailed off into the dusk, leaving the _Enterprise_ drifting with a broken mast and several other major injuries.   
  
“Is that why they were here this whole time?!” Nyota demanded between deep pants as they caught their breath and watched the star-men sail away. “Do they just, I don't know, hate his people and want to get him?”

Jimmy, also panting and wincing, shrugged. “Could be,” he said. “People do it all the time here on Earth.”

The regular crew of the ship was in chaos, arguing about who should take charge. It seemed that Mister Scott, as the highest ranking, was the acting captain now with Commander Spock gone, but he was flushed and his eyes were wide and worried, only one thing on his mind.  

“The _Enterprise_ needs immediate attention,” he said. “She's limping badly.”

“You can still sail,” Jimmy scoffed.   
  
“The mizzen mast is almost broken clear off, James,” Mister Scott said defensively. “And the engine! It's--”

“Well yeah but you can still _sail_ ,” Jimmy said. “I mean it'll be tricky, but you have the main and fore sail, the boat will still _move_. We can still chase them and get Spock back.” 

“ We need to get back to England,” Kyle said. 

“That is the – go to hell, teabag, my father died so I wouldn't have to take orders from you people.” Jimmy scoffed. 

That did it, and three of the uniformed crewmen launched on Jimmy. He drew back in a fighting stance, and Sulu budged in front of him, drawing his sword and giving a short, commanding order. 

“You see!” Lieutenant Kyle said, pointing at the chaos and looking at Mister Scott. “They're barbarians! Put them off ship and let's get out of here!” 

Another crewman took offense. “We can't leave Commander Spock!” 

“Fine then,” Kyle said. “Let's put it to a vote.”   
  
“Oh for the love of -” Jimmy scrambled up to stand atop a lashed down barrel and raised his voice. “Everybody shut up! I am the Pirate King Captain Kirk and I'm commandeering this ship! And if anybody wants to stop me they can go through Sulu and his sword first.”

“ _Hai_ ,” Sulu confirmed with a wicked gleam in his eyes. 

“Now we're gonna patch up the ship as best we can and go get your stupid star-man commander back, because it is _the right thing to do,_ ” he looked accusingly at Kyle as he said it. “And we're going to either arrest or kill Nero in the process, because that's the whole reason we're here, and if you have a problem with that, just soothe yourselves with the thought that filthy pirates forced you to do it.”

He jumped down from the barrel, and Nyota had to admit she was a little impressed. She had tried to speak up a few times but was never heard – and it seemed these men were far less likely to listen to her than her pirates. 

“Pavel, can you help Mister Scott with the engine or whatever?” Jimmy said. 

Pavel's eyes lit up. “Oh yes Jim Kirk, happy to!” He bounded over to Mister Scott, who looked completely befuddled when Pavel kissed him once on each cheek in greeting. 

“Sulu, you've sailed on one of these right?” 

Sulu nodded, grinning, thrilled to be back on a big, proper ship. 

“Great, take the wheel, helmsman.” 

“What about us?” Nyota asked, from where she stood next to Bones. She wrung her hands a little nervously – being back on a ship like this reminded her too strongly of crossing the Strait – and she was out of her depth here. 

Bones, for his part, stood with his arms crossed, smiling almost proudly at Jimmy. 

“Anybody hurt?” Jimmy asked. 

“A few,” Bones replied. 

“Well-” Jimmy spread his hands in annoyance. Bones grinned and stalked off to treat the wounded. “And you, Nyota Uhura,” Jimmy said, taking her hand. “You're gonna help me come up with a plan.” 

Nyota shrugged. “Go on board and beat everybody up?”

Jimmy nodded. “They have disruptors, though. So we'll just have to be sneakier.” He turned to the last remaining crew, Kyle and another man, standing defiantly. “The rest of you! Go fix something! And somebody get me a phaser!” 

\--

She was the last thing Nero would ever think was a threat. 

She was barefoot, and skinny, and wore nothing but a kanga wrapped around her slim hips and another one twisted around her breasts. She still had scars on her wrists and back and legs from her time in slavery, and freedom hadn't done much to quell her temper. She had long, sleek straight hair tied up in a ponytail, and it fluttered in the breeze. 

She stood at the hull on the port side of the _Enterprise_ , her wrists tied demurely with rope. Sulu stood on one side, his hand on her shoulder. Jimmy stood on her other side. 

The ship slid up alongside the _Narada_ , and from this distance they could see the damage done to the aether-engine, visible through a hole in the deck, underneath the main mast. 

Jimmy raised his hands in an open-palmed gesture. A white flag fluttered at the top of their mast. 

One of the tattooed star-men peered out at them, holding a lantern. “What's this supposed to be?” he called out over the calm waters. The wind was still and the ships creaked in the night time. 

“A surrender,” Jimmy said. “This ship is wrecked. Can't do anything with it. Anyways I miss you, Ayel!” 

The star-man frowned, looking at Jimmy suspiciously. “You were a mistake, Jim Kirk,” he said. “We said we'd never bring another human into the crew after that.” 

Jimmy looked hurt. “Look, I'm not even with Bones anymore,” he said. “I've got this guy now, Sulu Hikaru. He's absolutely _crazy_ and he'll do anything I say.”

Sulu tensed slightly by Nyota's side, and she could tell he was a little offended. 

“ And I've brought you a woman,” Jimmy went on. Now it was Nyota's time to tense. 

The whole thing was distasteful to her, of course, but there were few options for her getting to Nero physically, and she was willing to endure this if it meant he would die at _her_ hand and not some man's. The idea of them boarding the _Narada_ had just proved to be an impossibility, after all. 

Ayel sneered at Nyota now. “We've had our fill of slave girls, to be honest,” he said.   
  
“Yeah but you'll like this one. She's got a talented tongue!”

“Jimmy!” Nyota whispered. 

“Shh, sorry, just pretend you don't understand,” Jimmy whispered back, his mouth set into a fine line. 

Ayel considered for a while. “Why do you want to come back, Jim Kirk?” he asked. “You hated it here.”  
  
“Yeah but in hindsight it was better than the alternative. Like I said, I ditched Bones, and you guys captured Spock – I hate that guy! Whatever you're planning to do to Spock, I want in. He's as much my enemy as yours, and the enemy of my enemy, right?”

“What?” Ayel said.    
  
“Huh?”  
  
“The enemy of my enemy what?”

Jimmy was caught up short. “Is... my friend. You guys are my friends, is what I'm saying.” 

Sulu and Nyota rolled their eyes. 

Ayel gave in, grudgingly, and put out a board for them to cross. 

“I'm taking you straight to Nero,” Ayel said. 

“Of course!” Jimmy conceded cheerfully. 

The _Narada_ was just as big and impressive as the _Enterprise_ , but not nearly as lavish or well appointed. It was depressing and dank, and Nyota got a sickening feeling just being there. Ayel led them through corridors towards the captain's quarters. Once they were below deck, in the corridors, alone with Ayel, Jimmy whispered: “Now Sulu.” 

Instantly, Sulu whipped around, drawing his sword. Ayel drew his phaser but Sulu nonchalantly brought the butt of his sword down, knocking the phaser out of Ayel's hand. 

Jimmy produced his own phaser from his trousers, and shot at Ayel. There was a _throm!_ and Ayel fell down in a flash of light. Jimmy was tossed back too, from the kickback. 

“ Whoa,” Jimmy said. “That was a lot more than I was expecting. I um. I might not... know... how to use these things.” He looked down at Ayel's dead body and blanched a little bit. Nyota thought Jim Kirk might be the first pirate she'd heard of that didn't like to kill people. 

“Let's go,” she chimed in. “If they heard that and find us, we're dead.” 

Jimmy nodded, his face still white. He touched her arm and led her down the corridor to the captain's quarters. She shrugged the rope off her wrists and held on to it.   
  
“Here we go,” Jimmy breathed deep at Nero's door. “Uh,” he looked at them with big eyes. “I guess we just go in?”

He tentatively reached out to open the door – or knock – but Sulu leaned back and kicked the door in in one try. 

“Fuck's sake Sulu!” Jimmy cried. 

“Who the hell is that!” a voice bellowed out, and in the candlelit, dark cabin they saw Nero get up from a chair and cross over to them. He was big, a lot bigger than Nyota remembered, and fast, crossing the room in two steps. 

Before Sulu could fly at him with his sword, Nyota took matters into her own hands. She ran at him, ducking under his arm and bringing the rope around his neck, pulling at it tightly. He scrabbled at the rope around his neck, and Sulu placed the tip of his sword against Nero's chest. They lowered him to the floor, where Kirk plopped down on his legs.   
  
“Jim Kirk,” Nero gasped out. “I should've known you'd come back like this, you little coward.”

“Coward?” Jimmy cocked an eyebrow. “And here I thought I was being brave, coming all this way to save Commander Spock.”   
  
“Spock!” Nero sputtered out. “Did he and his people promise to help you? Like they promised to help Romulus? They're liars. They let us starve during the famine and they'll do _nothing_ for this backwater world."  


“ Then we'll just have to help ourselves,” Nyota said. Sulu glanced up at her and moved away, as she flipped around to sit on Nero's chest, keeping his arms pinned under her knees. Sulu kept his sword pointed at Nero and Jimmy pinned his legs down. 

Nyota pulled her cutlass out of the band of her kanga in the back, unsheathing it, and put it to Nero's throat. 

“Do you remember me?” she asked. 

Nero sneered, even with eyes red from the previous choking. “One pitiful slave girl is the same as any other.”   
  
“You shut your mouth you scumbag,” Jimmy said, drawing his phaser and pointing it. “We-”

“No!” Nyota batted Jimmy's arm away, and his phaser went sprawling. “Don't you dare take my revenge from me, Jim Kirk,” she said. “This is _mine_.”

“ How sweet,” Nero tutted. “And who are you avenging, my dear? I know quite a lot about revenge. Is it your husband? Your entire people, maybe?”    
  
“No,” Nyota's voice broke. Her eyes were full of tears but none fell. Her hand was shaky as it held the cutlass against Nero's throat. “Just one girl, a girl named Penda, who you killed.”

Before anyone could say anything else, and before she could change her mind, Nyota pushed the cutlass deep into Nero's throat, and sliced it open. 

He didn't die right away, of course, he sputtered and struggled, and all three of them had to hold him down. He stared up at with Nyota with those dark sad eyes that held, now, the smallest spark of regret. Nyota, clenching her eyes shut, slashed at his throat again and finished it. Blood spurted all over her, warm and fragrant. 

No tears fell. 

\--

By some stroke of magic – perhaps Jimmy's pure luck – nobody had heard the death of either Ayel or Nero. The star-men drank a lot, Jimmy explained in whispers, and were probably all tucked up in the  mess together commiserating the home world.  
  
“Don't get me wrong,” he said. “They're all just as bad as Nero.”

He led them down to the brig, where Spock, still groggy and mostly unresponsive, lay tied behind a set of bars. 

“Oh _fuck_ ,” Jimmy said. “I _always_ forget about prison bars.” 

Nyota's eyes went wide. “Wait,” she said. She untied her ponytail and removed a pin she still used to keep the top of her hair tucked in; the same pin she had stolen from the star-men months ago. She moved forward and fiddled with it in the lock while Sulu stood watch at the entrance to the brig. 

She and Jimmy rushed to Spock's side, untying his bonds. He lolled and looked up at them. 

“ Is this a rescue?” he asked, with that tiny tone of sassiness that made Nyota smile. 

“It sure is, you dumb beetle-head,” Jimmy said, helping Spock stand and propping him up on one shoulder.    
  
“You? Have come to rescue me?”

“Well not all pirates are the same,” Nyota said. 

Spock looked at Nyota with foggy eyes. “Madam, you're covered in blood.”  
  
“I know.”

Spock nodded solemnly. “So it is finished.” 

“Yes.” She smiled sadly. 

Sulu led the way back up to the deck. Somebody came up behind them but Spock – perhaps with some kind of extra star-man hearing - turned before the others knew he was there, and pinched the star-man on the shoulder. He fell to the floor. 

“Yowza,” Jimmy said softly. 

The sun was beginning to rise as they crawled back over the board to the _Enterprise_ , where Bones was waiting impatiently, a worried scowl on his face. 

“Jesus Christ,” he said when he saw Nyota and Spock. “This is the last time I'm helping with any of your crazy schemes, Jimbo. This is the last goddamn straw.” 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Jimmy said impatiently. He unceremoniously dumped Spock on the deck by Bones as Sulu pushed the board into the water, and he ran over to the wheel. There was a tube for talking nearby, and he shouted down it. “Now, Pavel!” 

“ _Da!_ ” came the enthusiastic response, and there was a great _thrumming_ sound like Nyota had never heard before. She and Bones fell to the deck as the ship lurched forward and – upward?

By now the pirates on the _Narada_ were swarming the deck, shooting at them with their disruptors and cannons. The _Enterprise_ , however, drifted forward in the breeze, lifting a few feet out of the water and gaining speed. 

“Cannons, now!” Jimmy cried out from the wheel and Kyle, or someone, shouted back an affirmative. Cannons rang out from the _Enterprise_ , and at this vantage point in the air, they landed on the deck of the _Narada,_ until one fell full force into the hold under the main mast and hit their aether-engine. 

Which burst into flames. 

“Full sails! Go!” Jimmy cried, as Sulu took the wheel. 

Nyota clutched Spock on the deck to keep him from sliding all over the place, Bones at her side. 

“Are we flying?!” she asked Bones. 

“God dammit,” Bones said. “I think we are.” 

**Fourteen** : **In Which an Amicable Conclusion is Reached**

The _Enterprise_ , at this juncture, with Scotty and Pavel's jury rigging, could only hover and fly for a short while, before it splashed back down in the ocean and they sailed towards Tumbatu island. 

They all got off to stretch their legs, and watch the _Narada_ burn and then sink on the horizon. 

Spock, by now clear headed and once again impeccably dressed, looked James Kirk over. “It is a serious crime, in both the British Empire and the Federation, to steal a ship, be it a sea vessel or an aether-ship.”

“ Uh huh,” Kirk, shirtless and unkempt, smirked at him. 

Spock frowned slightly. “The punishment for such a crime is a very lengthy prison stay, sometimes for life.” 

“Yeah,” Kirk said. “But Spock, how are you going to bring me to justice without a ship? I mean, it's mine now, the _Enterprise_. So I could give you a ride, if you like, but _you're_ not bringing _me_ anywhere. Sorry.” Spock stiffened slightly as Jimmy came over to pat him on the shoulder. “But I'm looking for a first officer on my new pirate ship if you're interested,” he said. “It seems like you have some goals that can't be achieved working within the legal Earth or Federation framework.”

Spock's mouth tightened. “Indeed,” he said. “Perhaps it is logical to take the opportunities that are presented to me.” 

Kirk grinned and slapped Spock on the back. “I'd say!” 

\--

Nyota went to wash the blood off on a secluded part on the beach, thankful they had stopped where she could do so. She washed out her hair, and all the blood off her hands and her face and her body. She soaked her _kangas_ and then shook them out, and wrapped one of them around herself. She crouched in the surf, letting the waves hit her ankles, and hugged her knees. 

Eventually she started crying, properly, the biggest fit of tears she had since the day she was taken. She cried broken and openly for her sister, and for the part of her life that she would never get back. 

She cried for almost half an hour, big wracking sobs, and after a while it felt like a great was lifted from her shoulders. 

“ Madam, are you in distress?” a gentle voice asked. She glanced up and saw Commander Spock, standing stiffly with his hat on and his hands behind his back. 

“No,” she said, stand up. “I'm fine.”    
  
“I wanted to offer my gratitude in your part of my rescue,” Spock said. “I am aware of the esteem James Kirk had for me, so I'm not entirely convinced I would've been rescued at all if it wasn't for your personal mission.”

Nyota smiled, her face sore from the crying. “You're welcome, Spock.”  
  
“Madam, excuse my boldness, but you still seem very distressed. Please be assured there will be no legal action against you in regards to Nero's death.”

Nyota almost laughed despite herself. “No, I'm fine. I'm fine with what I did. I'm happy I did it.”

Spock tilted his head. “But you were crying.”

She nodded and shrugged. “Sometimes you just have to cry,” she said. 

“I see.” Spock said, although it was clear he didn't. He shifted his weight again. “Madam, I would also like to... apologize for anything I might have said in our first encounter that may have caused discomfort or offense to you. I have revised my stance on pirates.” 

Nyota had to laugh at that. “Okay, thank you.”   
  
“And I would like to ask, if it's not too bold, if you would like to join me for a meal at your convenience.”

Nyota's skin tingled, up her cheeks and across her neck, and she looked down at her feet. 

Spock took her hesitance for displeasure, because he quickly back pedaled. “Of course, I understand if you do not wish-”

“Yes,” Nyota said, blurting it out. She smiled at him. “I have revised my stance on star-men. I would love to join you for a meal.” 

Spock nodded, and looked slightly flustered. “I am terribly sorry for being so impolite, but may I ask your name?”

She grinned. “It's Nyota Uhura.” 

\--

A few of the original _Enterprise_ crew were interested in staying aboard – particularly Mister Scott, who wanted to work on his precious lady no matter who was in charge. Jimmy amicably agreed to let the others off at Stonetown, with all their belongings and enough money to see them back home. 

Nyota wanted to find Gaila, to at least apologize for abandoning her like that. Jimmy was still worried about their being wanted for the rescue at the House of Wonders, so Mister Spock and Mister Scott both escorted her, and she dressed in a European style. 

So Gaila barely recognized her at the night market, with her hair tucked up and a big stuffy dress on. 

“ What in the...” Gaila said openly. 

Nyota slipped around the stall and hugged her. “It's just a disguise,” she said. “Don't worry, I'll always be Zanzibari.”

Gaila didn't smile, really, she just looked at Nyota with those blue eyes peering out from under her headwrap. 

“I thought you were gone forever,” Gaila said, her voice soft and sad.  

Nyota smiled shakily. “I'm so sorry Gaila. But I came back! I just did what I had to do.” She took Gaila's hands in hers. “Jimmy's got a new ship,” she said. “A big one, with a huge galley. Do you want to come with us?”

Gaila pretended to hesitate, probably still angry for being left behind, but then her blue eyes went smiley and she nodded. “Yes, of course!” 

Nyota grinned and took Spock's arm, introducing Gaila to Mister Scott, who held out his own arm for her to take. 

And that's how Gaila and Scott met. 

\--

The _HMS Enterprise_ bobbed along the Indian Ocean. James Kirk stood on the deck with his crew, and a bottle of rum. 

They were a rag-tag team, of different breeds and classes and constitutions. Pavel, back in 'proper boy clothes' and with his curls cropped short, was tucked against Sulu's side. Nyota and Gaila wore their _kanga_ wraps, their long hair free in the wind. Commander Spock still dressed like he was in the navy. 

And Jimmy, of course, preferred to be barefoot and shirtless. “Do you guys feel that breeze?” he asked, thrilled at the coolness on his skin. 

“ Yeah, all right,” Bones said. “Show us this amazing thing.” 

Jimmy grinned then. “You got it! Scotty? Pavel?” 

Mister Scott stepped forward with a flourish, Pavel bouncing on his heels at his side. He opened a panel on the front of the steering wheel, revealing some levers and knobs. 

“Well everybody, I'd like to welcome you to the maiden sky voyage of the aether-ship _Enterprise_ ,” he said. Pavel smiled and clapped, getting everybody else going on a scattered applause. “Mr Sulu, if you will,” Mister Scott said. Sulu grinned and came forward, flipping some of the switches on the wheel's panel, and then spinning the wheel itself. 

The ship continued bobbing on the waves, and a _thrum_ ming sound filled the air. It started to lift, rising out of the water a few feet, and going forward. The sails began to inflate – more and more until they became big balloons, and the _Enterprise_ lifted up and up into the sky. 

Everybody applauded – Gaila squealed with laughter and went to hug Jimmy, and then Bones, who was still managing to look unimpressed. 

Jimmy opened the bottle of rum and took a long swig, and then started passing it around. “To the pirate life!” he cried. “Let's liberate all the slaves, and steal from the rich, and give to the poor. Let's get drunk and make bad decisions. Let's go have an adventure guys!” 

Nyota took a long pull from the bottle. She looked up at Spock, who looked down at her with the tiniest smile.

“ To the _Enterprise!”_ she toasted. “ Maisha _marefu!_ ” 

The others shouted back – Maisha _marefu!_

She rested her head on Spock's shoulder. He leaned down and brushed his cheek against her hair. “ Maisha _marefu_ , Nyota Uhura,” he said.  
  
  
  
THE END.  



	12. Appendix

AUTHOR'S NOTE

This story was written for the [](http://trekreversebang.livejournal.com/profile)[**trekreversebang**](http://trekreversebang.livejournal.com/) Star Trek Big Bang. The art I chose was piratey and awesome, and I wanted to write a piratey story incorporating the island of Zanzibar, since I am nostalgic for the time I spent volunteering there. My artist appears to have gone AFK, but hopefully she will come back soon and post the amazing art that inspired this story! I want to thank her for the opportunity to write this.

I want to also thank the great mods at [](http://trekreversebang.livejournal.com/profile)[**trekreversebang**](http://trekreversebang.livejournal.com/) for their organization in this challenge and their immense patience when I had to ask for extensions.

And big big big thanks to [](http://viivi.livejournal.com/profile)[**viivi**](http://viivi.livejournal.com/) for the hand-holding while I wrote this story and for beta'ing it. And thank you, dear reader, for taking the time to read it! I hope you enjoyed it! Without further ado, here are some appendix notes and a glossary, and the soundtrack!

PEOPLE AND PLACES

 **Ngorongo Crater** : A gigantic crater in Tanzania, the historical home of many different tribes. Now a national park. 

**Datooga** : A nomadic tribe of people in Tanzania. I've made Nyota Datooga in my story. They historically lived in Ngorongoro Crater for part of the year, but were forcibly moved a few decades ago to make way for a Tanzania-Canada wheat growing project. There doesn't seem to be any evidence that says they were really affected by the slave trade, but it's possible. 

**Bagamoyo:** a city on the coast of Tanzania, the end result of the historical slave caravan that started in Arusha or Lake Tanganyika. Slaves would then be packed onto ships, usually headed for the slave market in Zanzibar, but sometimes straight onto Persia or other locales.

 **Zanzibar** : An archipelago of islands off the coast of Tanzania, in the Indian Ocean. A busy trading hub for many centuries; disputed between different empires for many centuries, it joined Tanganyika in the 1960s to form the modern country of Tanzania. The southern island, Unguja, is the main island and generally called 'Zanzibar'. 

**Pemba** : the northern island of Zanzibar. 

**Stonetown** : The historical centre of Zanzibar City. Looks exactly how it sounds. 

**Michenzani** : A modern-day neighbourhood in Zanzibar City, about ten minutes walk from Stonetown, with high rises and housing projects. 

**Governer of Zanzibar** : I've mashed together a lot of different time periods for this story. I wanted Kirk's father to have died in the American Revolution, and as that would be the most familiar jumping off point for readers, I had to build around it. At this point in time Zanzibar was controlled by the Omani Sultanate, and I'm not sure what, exactly, the administration in Zanzibar was called. “Governor” seemed to make sense. The Sultan of Oman created the posting of the Sultan of Zanzibar about fifty or sixty years after the time of this story, for his nephew. The Governer Said al-Mugrabi in my story is named for [Tippu Tip](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tippu_Tip), an infamous slave trader who worked for many different Sultans in the 1800s.

 **The House of Wonders** : The palace built for the Sultan of Zanzibar in the 1800s, after the events in this story.  
  
 **Alexandria** : Port city in Egypt, on the Mediterranean Sea.  
  
 **The aether** : The "upper sky", or outer space.  


 **The Old Fort** : built in the 1600s by the Omani Sultanate to expel the Portuguese from Zanzibar. 

**Paje Beach, Menai Bay, Kiwani Bay** etc: various places on Unguja. 

**Edo** : The name for Tokyo during the Edo Period, when the story takes place. 

**Ryukyu Islands** : a chain of islands in the southern part of Japan, at the time, a separate nation. 

**The Ainu** : an indigenous people from the northern islands of Japan. 

**Tsukuda Island** : an island in the Sumida River, which flows into Tokyo. 

**Urup** : An island north of Japan, home of Ainu, and historically disputed between Japan and Russia. 

**Tula** : a town nearish to Moscow, capital of the Tula Oblast, where Catherine the Great (Ekaterina) hid hear only acknowledged illegitimate son, Aleksey Bobrinsky. (I made Irina up, obviously.) 

**Prison Island** : A small island west of Unguja, also called Changuu Island. Arab slave traders used to use this island to house unruly slaves. It didn't become known as Prison Island until after the 1800s when the British tried to build a prison there. Now it is mostly a tourist draw because of sea turtles! 

**Jozani Forest** : A big diverse forest in the eastern part of Unguja, which includes a mangrove marsh. It is home to the Zanzibar red colobus monkey (also called Kirk's Red Colobus!), which is unique to Zanzibar. Considerably smaller nowadays than it used to be, Jozani Forest is a protected national park. 

**Tumbatu Island** : a smallish island off the northwest tip of Unguja. 

  


GLOSSARY

I've used **Swahili** to refer to the people of the coast of East Africa, and **Kiswhaili** to refer to the Swahili language.

 **Kanga** : a large, brightly patterned rectangular piece of cloth that can be worn “as is” in countless variations, also as a headscarf, or sewn into a bag or a skirt or anything. Worn by women all over Swahili-speaking East Africa for centuries and today.

 **Keffiyeh** : a checkered scarf sometimes worn in a turban or as a man's headscarf.

 **Kofia** : a man's hat, similar to a Fez

 **Karibu(ni)** : welcome

 **Paka** : kitty cat

 **Asante (sana)** : thank you (very much).

 **Qat** : (or Khat, pronounced "chat") a leaf indigenous to coastal East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. When chewed it is similar in affect to the drug ecstasy. It's not a particularly big problem, now or historically, on Zanzibar, but it's not unheard of.

 **Bwana** : "Mister"

 **Mbwa** : doggie  
  
Maisha marefu: Cheers (literally "long life" )   


 **Zanzibari Street Pizza** : this is a pastry cooked with meat, fish, or veggie filling, with eggs and cheese. Cooked on a pan on the street over a charcoal fire, and can also be found in Dar es Salaam and other mainland towns. I'm not sure when it was invented or if they would have had it in this time period. Chocolate and banana filling for dessert is also cooked at the Forodhani Night Market, it's similar to a crepe but not super similar - the pastry is a lot smaller.

 **Casbah** : a walled city

 **Dhow** : An Arab sailing vessel, in this case a very small one for fishing.

 **Daishō** : samurai swords ****

**Tsarevich** : prince ****

**Kata** : Choreographed patterns of movement in martial arts

 **Campaign Fever** : dysentery

 **(Bolshoe) spasibo:** Thank you (very much)

 **Arigato** : thanks

 **Gaijin** : Japanese slur for a foreigner

 **Poa Kichezi** : Cool bananas!

 **Shikamoo** : a respectful greeting to an elder

 **Marahaba** : the response to that greeting

 **Mambo vipi** : an informal hello

 **Sayonara** : Good-bye

 **Ye tebya lublyu** : I love you

 **Nyota** : Star

 **(U)Penda(/o)** : Love

 **Uhuru** : Freedom (from which we get Uhura)  
 ****  
Nina penda tu: I love you (not actually used in the story but I thought it would be nice to add!)

 


End file.
